Power Boost Your FUTURES!

We've certainly covered a lot of ground over the past weeks, beginning with the FUTURES™ holiday posts that showcased ways to align holiday spending strategies to the principles of financial literacy. More recent posts focused on goal setting and the benefits of service to all. As we wind up this wave of 12 blog posts, let’s take a deep dive into the program to share the incredible value it offers to you, your children, and your community.

Check out Blog 12’s big-picture view of FUTURES’ four program strands: Personal Finance, Economics, Investing, and Entrepreneurship. To inspire you to give the program a try, we included a few worksheets that you can put right to use with your class, family, club, or organization. We’ve dubbed these deep-dive Power Boosts! Each Power Boost provides a glimpse of the program’s approach, the strand’s focus, worksheets, and instruction—that you can immediately use to boost your curriculum—and your own financial literacy strengths!

Power Up for the Future

The FUTURES program simplifies and deconstructs complicated, intricate Financial Literacy concepts to make them relevant and easier to understand for everyone. With the full FUTURES program at your fingertips, you can help your kids better understand the complicated world of finance AND develop their own personal stake in it. Created by teachers for teachers, this proven educational program is FREE and readily available to districts, schools, teachers, coaches, counselors, and families, too!

Real-time, real-world connections help drive everyone’s interest, especially kids’, and create effective links between academic content and the business world. This unique multi-disciplinary approach elevates learning, allowing educators, school districts, families, and community centers to help prepare tomorrow’s leaders—today—so they can compete in and become strong leaders of our ever-changing global marketplace—in their future.

Power Boost 1: Personal Finance IS Personal

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Personal Finance is just that – personal —and as a result, it’s valuable for everyone: kids, teachers, leaders, and families alike. With the help of the FUTURES™ program, kids can begin to more clearly define and understand a budget, the various categories within a budget, learn to create a budget, make budget adjustments, and apply this knowledge in memorable real-world settings. As kids create their own budgets after tracking expenses over time, learning the differences between a job and a career, a need and a want, and many other financial literacy nuances, budgeting becomes familiar and more infused into their learning strategies. From learning how to budget, kids discover the power of giving. Check out this Philanthropy Flow Chart. It’s a great easy-to-include tool to fuel a conversation about how philanthropy works so you can work philanthropy into your daily world.

Like all strands of FUTURES™, the Personal Finance strand is designed to help you “meet your kids where they are.” Each of the program’s 29 sections across all four strands is organized around a Focus Question. For example, the Budget and Goal Setting section asks kids to consider the following: “When, how, and why is it beneficial to manage your money?” It's this kind of personalization that makes the learning process more relevant. It engages and involves the kids, inspiring them to really think about what they might do in a range of financial situations. These are just some of the Personal Finance strategies that help to makes FUTURES such a successful Financial Literacy program.

Power Boost 2: Easy-to-Grasp Economics, Anyone?

Let’s take a look at the second of the four FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ strands—Economics. What better way to help kids learn to better handle and manage money than by understanding how the system behind it works? This program’s in-depth Economics strand covers a wealth of topics:

• Consumers and Producers

• Currency and Federal Reserve

• Goods and Services

• Scarcity

• Opportunity Cost

• Federal Government Taxes and Role of Government

• Productive Resources

• Specialization and Division of Labor

In this part of the program, a variety of section resources introduce economics concepts using fun activities and familiar real-world scenarios including a city council budget, the fairness of a trade, and how advancements in musical technology impact consumers. Through leveled resources, students will learn the roles of consumers and producers, look at how money is used as a medium of exchange, and examine the trading process from various angles as well as gain an understanding of how goods and services are produced, consumed and exchanged.

Scenarios for All Occasions

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This Scenarios Chart can be universally used to sift through a host of different scenarios in any exploration—even those that go far beyond Economics. This makes a great activity for early finishers, too.

FUTURES guided, easy-to-access lesson plan approach that you can begin to coach your kids to expand their ideas about Personal Finance and Economics. This program helps to explain the larger role of Economics to everyone, while building upon the base understanding from the Personal Finance strand, enlarging the scope of their financial literacy world, carefully explaining how businesses work within their own world and in the greater world view. Clarity about concepts like the flow of money and target markets are vital. These are defined in easy-to-understand language and through engaging worksheets, helping kids can begin to formulate a better understanding of just how much the economy impacts both their own lives and the world around them.

Power Boost 3: Stock Up on Investing Ideas

To inspire kids to explore companies and stocks, start by asking kids what real companies they like—and why. Ask them what they think it would be like to invest in these companies. Help by choosing your favorite company too and going through this activity together. Ask the kids to brainstorm some of their favorite companies and make a list of five favorite companies. Invite them to choose just one for this exercise. By encouraging kids to invest in companies with products they already support and like, they’ll learn a very valuable investing lesson: investors need to understand the company, its end users, the customer base, the market segments, and the company’s philosophies and priorities in order to be a savvy investor.

It's Your Decision

It's important to stress that each kid can make a personal choice about their company—there’s no right or wrong choice. Give kids ample time to think about their choices, favorites, and ultimate decision to help them form their Investment Philosophy, a set of guiding principles that inform and shape their investment decision-making process. Some classic investing philosophies include:

• Value Philosophy

• Fundamental Philosophy

• Growth Philosophy

• Socially Responsible Philosophy

• Technical Philosophy

• Contrarian Philosophy

How to Read Stocks

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Divide students into pairs and distribute copies of the Stock Vocabulary Worksheet to each pair of students. After you’ve reviewed terms and definitions, invite kids to research stock quotes online, working with partners to make predictions on what each term means. Students can record their predicted definitions in the second column of the worksheet. Project the How to Read Stock Tables projectable and guide students in selecting a stock from the Dow or NASDAQ and complete the My Stock Worksheet according to the stock’s quote in the online report.

Students can share their understanding of the terms through their selected stock. Definitions can be revised directly on their copies of the Stock Vocabulary Worksheet as they discuss their findings. Finally, create a large interactive poster of a stock quote table so student groups can follow and record their stock’s quote report using sticky notes to update the display daily. Make sure students also write the date and time to each sticky note update.

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Power Boost 4: Entrepreneurship

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The program’s detailed Entrepreneurship strand covers more than just Entrepreneurship; it covers a wealth of powerful future-focused leadership concepts for kids. From business startup and financing, flow of money, public and private corporations, target markets and the always important social responsibility, kids are able to experience and visualize themselves as entrepreneurial leaders. After all, tomorrow isn’t that far away!

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With the help of fun FUTURES worksheets and games like the ones that follow, kids can unlock a richer grasp of what it means to be an entrepreneur. Kids will also explore the various parts of building and running a successful business, learn how a franchise works, discover the difference between investing in a startup business versus a franchise, and investing in a business and running that same business every single day (and night!). Kids consider various factors for starting a business and the importance of goal setting at the beginning stages of the business—and every single day thereafter.

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The Entrepreneurship strand helps kids explore how they might want to run their own businesses one day—soon. Many of the kid s you know today could soon be ready to start their very own businesses, becoming the entrepreneurs of tomorrow—with this strong jumpstart from FUTURES—and you! For more information about how to incorporate these worksheets into your lesson plans or family adventures in finance, clik here to download the entire FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ today—with Ariel Education Initiative’s compliments!

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These Power Boosts provide just a glimpse of how the FUTURES program simplifies and deconstructs complicated, intricate Financial Literacy concepts to make them relevant and easier to understand for everyone.

Onward Toward Our FUTURES

We hope you enjoyed and benefited from this wave of 12 Financial Literacy posts to welcome 2020 in a financially literate and responsible way. For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, this amazing (and FREE!) financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or to download sections from the program, please click below. Should you find yourself looking to connect financial literacy concepts to everything from curriculum themes to family life lessons, you’ll continue to be able to download and use this program with our compliments—any time, any place—to help your kids grow and flourish into Financially Literate Kids who become part of a Financially Literate Society.

Entrepreneurs: Dreamers in and of Service

When a day is as special and as powerful as Martin Luther King Day, it deserves a blog post that is equally special and powerful. The formal name of this important day is actually Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Day of Service, and it is coming up on Monday, January 20th this year. Dr. King was dedicated to serving as a voice for others and fighting for what is right. While much time has passed since Dr. King gave his incredible “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., many of the same issues still continue today, telling us all that there is still more to do, more that we each must do—to make this world a better place.

Dream of Better, Make It Happen

Because one of the four strands of the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is Entrepreneurship, and many entrepreneurial endeavors begin with dreams, this post focuses on how we can all help our dreams for a better world to become real.

Many entrepreneurs take great risks and commit to their endeavors with extreme passion in order to make a difference. One definition of an entrepreneur is someone who looks at things differently, challenges the status quo, and deeply believes that he or she can do it better or differently. This description defines much of what Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. accomplished.

That’s why in this blog post, we take a different sort of look at both Dr. King’s creative vision as well as how the many successful entrepreneurs weave together their passions and their desire to be of service to others, helping to create bigger and better FUTURES for all. We hope you will become inspired to use your entrepreneurial talents, passion and compassion, and in some cases, physical strength to “be of service” to others. This post is filled with ideas.

A Quarter of a Century!

This Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service marks the 25th anniversary to celebrate this Civil Rights leader’s life and the long-lasting legacy that we have been fortunate enough to receive. According to the Corporation for National and Community Service, we all need to think of this day as “a day on, not a day off.” In fact, did you know that MLK Day is the only federal holiday that’s officially designated as a national day of service? The goal is to provide an opportunity, time, and encouragement to Americans to do what they can, offer their talents, and step up in order to improve their communities. Entrepreneurs can play key roles in these efforts—and not simply on this special day. Dr. King devoted his entire life to service; by focusing our attention on service for this one day, the hope is that these efforts will continue—everyday.

The Dream Speech We Almost Didn’t Hear!

This example shows that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was indeed, a risk-taker, a true entrepreneurial quality. It was on August 28, 1963 that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his famous “I Have A Dream” speech as part of the March on Washington. In the months leading up to this march, many important events took place, causing reactions and chain reactions filled with extreme mounting tensions. In June, President John F. Kennedy called for a drive for more civil rights on national television—on the very same night that NAACP leader Medgar Evers was murdered in Mississippi. This was the catalyst for the civil rights march.

The speech was delivered to approximately 250,000 people who came to Washington, D.C., from all across the country to march for civil rights. Dr. King’s speech was part of this incredible day, but did you know that we almost missed hearing this speech for two reasons?

First, a very expensive sound system was installed specifically to be sure attendees could hear the events at the Lincoln Memorial. Remember in 1963, technology was nothing like it is today. After the sound system was installed, according to many sources, the equipment was said to have been deliberately damaged just before the speeches began. Once this was discovered, Attorney General Robert Kennedy quickly enlisted the Army Corps of Engineers to work to fix the system.

It’s the Gospel Truth!

The second reason we almost didn’t hear this part of Dr. King’s prepared speech is because, according to those close to Dr. King, “I Have a Dream” actually wasn’t part of the speech he’d written and had planned to deliver at this march. Mahalia Jackson, the famous gospel singer and musical legend, had frequently accompanied Dr. King to events and rallies where she would perform. It’s been reported that when he felt most discouraged, Dr. King would even call Jackson on the phone just to hear her sing. It was because of Mahalia Jackson that Dr. King put aside his notes and began to speak of his dream that day. She was seated within earshot of Dr. King and as he read his speech, she spoke out loud, urging Dr. King, then and there, to “Tell them about the dream, Martin. Tell them about the dream.”

Those words started the transformation from the prepared notes Dr. King had written to the messages from his heart, the messages we still hold fast to today. The original written speech was given by Dr. King to George Raveling, a college basketball player from Villanova, who was there that day to serve as one of King’s bodyguards. It’s said that Raveling has kept the speech safely locked away all these years.

What Dreams Can You Act Upon?

As for the rest of us? We’ll need to be content to relive these words and moments by reading and listening to the speech. Click on the link from the National Archives to read the speech and click on the YouTube link below to hear an audio recording of Dr. King’s I Have a Dream speech:

• Full Speech from the National Archives

• Link to YouTube audio recording

As you listen to these compelling words, consider your dreams for a bigger, better FUTURE for those in your school, family, and community. Once you focus on your dream, start to put it into action—just one action can make a difference. What single action can you take, starting on Monday, to help those in your community? There are many organized events scheduled for this day and a quick search should give you lots to choose from near you.

Entrepreneurs in Service

When you join a group of volunteers in your community, you’re likely to discover that some of the people around you are getting things done and making things happen—more than others. Check out those people who are carrying the wood, hanging the signs, serving food, and setting up all the crowdsourcing donation accounts on computers. Chances are, they also happen to be entrepreneurs, eager to give back and apply their talents to the causes in their communities. What terrific role models for your kids to meet, too!

If there are no planned events near you, tap into your inner-entrepreneur, create your own, and invite others to join you. Chances are, there are others looking to be part of something, too. By inviting others, you’ll likely increase your mission’s chances for success.

Here are just a few ideas:

• Hold a bake sale with your kids.

• Volunteer to work at a soup kitchen.

• Help build or repair a home.

• Look in your neighborhood for ideas and ask around. You’re likely to discover many projects in need of starting.

Your Entrepreneurial FUTURE

As you focus on discovering and applying your own entrepreneurial energy on this upcoming day of service, think about how your family, students, and those around you can all benefit from acquiring a stronger awareness of the tenets of entrepreneurship and all four of the financial literacy strands of learning. All entrepreneurs benefit from knowledge.

From Personal Finance and Economics to Entrepreneurship and Investing, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is the groundbreaking Financial Literacy Program that empowers students BEFORE High School—to achieve their best success AFTER High School. Ariel Education Initiative is founded upon the belief that Financial Literacy is a critical 21st-century skill and is vital to our kids, our society, and our future. That’s why AEI developed FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ and that is also why this program is 100% free.

The goal of FUTURES is to provide a robust financial education program for kids and budding entrepreneurs and investors of all ages—in school and far beyond. Whether it be learning to invest in securities, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, the fundamentals of becoming an entrepreneur or conducting a cost/benefit analysis, this program offers learners the chance to shape their own point of view that will empower them to make wise money choices—long into their futures.

The FUTURES program’s detailed Entrepreneurship strand covers much more than just Entrepreneurship; it covers a wealth of powerful future-focused leadership concepts for kids and adults. From business startup and financing, flow of money, public and private corporations, target markets and the always important social responsibility, readers are able to experience and visualize themselves as entrepreneurial leaders.

With the help of FUTURES easy-to-use worksheets and games, you’ll all unlock a richer grasp of what it takes to start and run a business. Many kids and adults discover their own entrepreneurial passions and are able to shape these glimmers of passions into future ideas. What ideas are inspiring you these days? What are YOUR big dreams?

In this strand of FUTURES, you will also explore the various parts of building and running a successful business, learn about how franchises work, discover the difference between investing in a startup business versus a franchise, and investing in a business and running that same business every single day (and night!). You will also learn about how to make financing decisions and become a more worthy candidate for credit.

Beyond the Program, Into the World

The FUTURES program simplifies and deconstructs complicated, intricate Financial Literacy concepts to make them relevant and easier to understand for students. With the full FUTURES program at your fingertips, you and your kids will better understand the complicated world of finance AND develop their own personal stake in it. Created by teachers for teachers, this proven educational program is FREE and readily available to districts, schools, teachers, coaches, counselors, and families, too!

As Dr. King would have no doubt supported, the FUTURES program encourages learners to develop and form their own point of view of finance and investing, while honing their critical thinking skills as they progress through the depth and breadth of the four FUTURES strands with their 29 stand-alone modular sections.

Further, real-time, real-world, relevant connections drive kids’ interest and create effective links between academic content and the business world. This unique multi-disciplinary approach elevates learning, allowing educators, school districts, and families and community centers to help prepare tomorrow’s leaders—today—so they can compete in and become strong leaders of our ever-changing global marketplace—in their futures.

As you consider how you will honor Dr. King’s memory and champion his legacy on this upcoming day of service, take some time to download any or all of the 29 sections or modules from FUTURES. The information within this program can help you and your children to begin to transform a single day of service into a lifetime of commitment to service.

Big Dreams? Wake up and Make Them Happen!

Do YOU Have a Dream?

As we approach this year’s celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Birthday, your team from FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is focusing our next few blog posts on entrepreneurship. It’s our way to honor Dr. King’s belief in everyone’s ability to have—and strive to realize—a big dream. While even our biggest dreams cannot compare to those of Dr. King, the passion, commitment, and energy that entrepreneurs bring to their businesses is a powerful way to grow and deliver results that can make a big difference.

Many entrepreneurial accomplishments begin with a dream. While dreaming is the first step, there are many steps and mis-steps that must happen to transform a dream into an entrepreneurial reality. In today’s post, we’ll cover the fundamentals of entrepreneurship by exploring a tasty transaction. In Blog 11, we will showcase the amazing entrepreneurial content within the FUTURES program.

With the right amount of drive, tenacity, commitment, energy and of course, knowledge, there is no wrong age to become an entrepreneur. You’re never too young and you’re never too old. Whether you have kids of your own or have kids in your charge in your classroom, why not start exploring entrepreneurship with your children? Discovering what they know, believe, and want to learn can help you chart a bigger FUTURE course for your own learning, too.

Know Any Entrepreneurs?

Start by asking your kids or students if they know what an entrepreneur does. “Do you know any entrepreneurs? Have you ever been an entrepreneur?” If they answer “no,” suggest they think again. They might not realize that anyone who has ever had a babysitting gig, a paper route, a dog-walking job, or set up a corner lemonade stand has actually worked as an entrepreneur. Share examples of entrepreneurs in your neighborhood—the dry cleaner, the food truck owner, and even the tech lady who drives around in that little bright green car with the computer magnet on top.

Thirsty for Success?

Start with a simple and familiar example that’s also delicious. Take a closer look at what it takes—from logistics and planning to investments and profits—to create and run a successful lemonade stand. Ask the following questions:

• What happens at a lemonade stand?

• Is it transactional? Experiential? Both?

• Who are the different people who must participate in the lemonade stand?

• How do you get ready to open a lemonade stand? What do you need to accomplish?

Walk kids through these steps.

1. The entrepreneur finds the right location.

2. The entrepreneur buys lemons, sugar, and cups to make lemonade.

3. The entrepreneur makes lemonade.

4. The entrepreneur sells lemonade.

5. The entrepreneur buys more supplies to make lemonade.

6. The entrepreneur needs to promote the lemonade stand (with a sign, by shouting at passing cars, by creating 2-for-1 sales, and more)

7. The entrepreneur needs a table, some chairs, and other materials like a table cloth, cash box, and perhaps a roll of paper towels.

Produce It and Consume It!

Once kids grasp the concept that running a lemonade stand is like running a small business, build upon the lemonade stand model to introduce two economic concepts—producers and consumers. Explain that when an entrepreneur buys lemons, sugar, and other supplies to make lemonade, she or he is a consumer. When the entrepreneur makes and sells lemonade, he or she is a producer. Explain that the people who buy the lemonade are also consumers.

Ask kids to make a list of examples of times they’ve acted as a consumer and times they’ve acted as a producer. Can a person or business ever be both a producer and a consumer? You can ask these questions while you’re out and about or when kids “consume” paper and paint for their next class project. Make this set of questions a habit and before you know it, they’ll be asking you about these two powerful terms.

Let’s Make a Deal!

Now that you’ve explored how a lemonade stand works, ask children how they think they would decide what to charge for each cup of lemonade. Begin by prompting them to think about everything they need to “consume” or buy in order to make the lemonade. You should then ask how they think they should decide on pricing. Does their answer indicate that they’ll make a profit?

Pricing Process

1. Have kids look up the cost of all the ingredients online or by asking family members what they last paid for these items at the grocery store.

2. Remind them that lemons and sugar cost money, but they also will need many other things—materials for a sign, a table for the stand itself, a pitcher, cups, and ice.

3. Based on all these factors, ask kids to come up with a plan.

4. How many cups need to be sold to “cover” costs? If the price is too low, the stand isn’t profitable. If the price is too high, no one is going to become a customer.

5. Try to settle on what is a reasonable price to charge for a cup of lemonade at a lemonade stand.

6. Ask kids to think about how much THEY would pay for a cup of lemonade—with their own money? This is a great way to tap into the concept of fair market value.

7. Coach kids to consider how many cups they must sell to cover their costs. Invite them to estimate how long they think it will take to sell that many cups.

8. Remind your budding entrepreneurs that consumers have to want or need what they are selling much more than those consumers want or need the dollars in their pocket. Coach kids to think about why people buy lemonade on a hot summer day.

9. This may spark your entrepreneurial team to reconsider selling cold lemonade in January. What might happen if they switched from lemonade to steamy hot chocolate instead? While hot chocolate might appeal to more buyers on a cold winter day, what new challenges does this create? How will the hot chocolate stay warm? What about marshmallows? Can you charge more for those?

Lead kids through this process and let their ideas lead you through the “teachable moments” by creating more and more questions for them to answer. After all, asking and answering questions is a big part of becoming an entrepreneur.

Questions to Grow On

Ask practical questions like:

• How will you make change?

• Do you need money to begin your business?

• What’s the money for?

• How much money do you need?

• What could happen if you buy too many supplies? Are any supplies perishable?

• What could happen if you buy too few supplies?

• What will you do if you run out of lemonade?

• What is your plan for any leftover lemonade?

• Will you have a sale to “drink up” the excess? (Or is lemonade on the menu for dinner?)

• If you switch to selling hot chocolate, what additional costs might come up?

• Is there a location that lets you run your hot chocolate stand even when it is snowing?

• Can you inspire your kids to DREAM BIGGER and create one combined seasonal “beverage company” that sells iced lemonade in the summer, warm apple cider in the fall, hot chocolate in the winter, and flowers in the spring?

Safety First!

Hot drink of cocoa or cool glass of lemonade—who’s feeling thirsty now? If your kids want to plan a real lemonade or hot cocoa stand, remind them that safety always comes first. While it’s easy to set up an indoor stand in the wintertime, it’s a smart idea all year long. Lemonade stands and any other sort of child-centric entrepreneurial adventures should take place in a safe place such as a community center, as part of a school event, or at a block party or other neighborhood gathering, and with adults present. Stress that even budding entrepreneurs need permission and approval from adults first. If your kids are permitted to venture outside for their lemonade stand, an adult should always be close by even if it is in a place you know well. Besides, you can later share that first business with your grown child someday when a FUTURE, more grown-up business is launched.

Bigger Entrepreneurial FUTURES!

The FUTURES Program, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ helps entrepreneurs. Check it out! By considering the various factors in starting a business and the importance of goal setting at the beginning stages of the business—and every single day thereafter—readers will become more aware of the realities of entrepreneurial undertakings. True entrepreneurs won’t be discouraged—they’ll just get smarter about how to tackle each and every potential obstacle.

The Entrepreneurship strand helps kids and adults think clearly about and explore how they might want to run their own businesses one day— which might be tomorrow with our help! Many FUTURES users just might start their very own businesses—with this strong jumpstart from FUTURES—and from you!

Dreaming of lemonade? Hot chocolate? Baked goods? Eager to launch a store on Etsy or other marketplaces? By digging into this strand of FUTURES, your entrepreneurial future will be poised to take off!

High-Five Goals in 365 Slices!

Even just a few days into the new year, many people are already realizing that New Year’s resolutions are great in theory. Often made with the fresh determination that comes with the start of a new calendar year, it’s easy to resolve to BE and DO better in specific areas of life that matter. We often reflect on our big priorities and set lofty goals for our bigger FUTURES about which we plan to be resolute. Yet, after just months or weeks, and for some resolutions, even after only a few days, many people abandon many of these meaningful resolutions. The year is just a dozen days old and already some resolutions have been broken. Why?

RESOLUTIONS ARE BIG DEALS!

It’s not in the timing of the resolutions that often sets us up for resolution failure. Nor does it stem from the resolutions themselves. Most resolutions are quite worthy of achieving. Take a look at this list from various top resolutions lists and you’ll quickly notice, each of these top 12 resolutions are REALLY BIG.

1. Enjoy life to the fullest

2. Lose weight and get fit through a healthier lifestyle

3. Spend more time with family and friends

4. Save more money, spend less money

5. Pay down or get out of debt

6. Quit smoking, drinking, other bad habits

7. Learn something new and different

8. Travel to new and exciting places

9. Be less stressed

10. Volunteer

11. Get organized

12. Fall in love, meet their soul mate

Are any of these resolutions on your list? Resolutions by their very nature are big undertakings. As a result, resolutions can be tough to parse into simple actionable items. To be achieved, even big resolutions need to be integrated into whatever you need to get done next Thursday, as it were. Just how does your to-do list for the coming week incorporate a potential desire to enjoy life to the fullest while spending more time with family and friends, learning something new in an exotic new place where you can lose weight, pay down your debt, reduce your stress and volunteer, all while being totally organized? With resolutions of this scale, of course many of us will abandon ship. As these top 12 resolutions show, it’s easy to make grand resolutions. As our track records show, it’s just as easy to consistently fall extremely short of our lofty goals when it comes time to actually implement them.

Two Reasons Why Resolutions Erode

Two factors enter into resolution erosion. First, we tend to set ourselves up with too many different big resolutions at once. Often, people realize greater success by thinking of resolutions as one would think of adding ingredients into a cake batter, one at a time. When it comes to adding the biggest ingredient, the flour, the batter has fewer lumps when you fold in flour gradually. Tackle one resolution at a time, working to master one resolution before moving onto the next. Even if your resolutions are pint-sized compared to these MEGAlutions, trying to accomplish even smaller multiple resolutions at once can be too much for a lot of us.

The second reason resolutions erode so quickly is not about WHEN we decide to work on them. It’s also not about WHAT the resolutions themselves may be about; if it matters to you, it is a worthwhile resolution. The second reason resolutions erode is because of HOW we tackle them. Would you ever attempt to eat an entire pizza in one bite? Hardly. Big goals need to be parsed into smaller, doable steps. By slicing big resolutions into smaller pieces, many of us will do a better job of integrating big goals into day-to-day life. Even smaller slices need to be actionable. For example, if you want to live a healthier life in 2020, many smaller actionable steps need to be part of this resolution, from cleaning out your pantry to replacing your running shoes.

365 Slices Mean 365 Fresh Starts

Using an approach like 365 Slices can help. 365 Slices is where you consider each new day a clean slate. Even when the day’s actions are a total bust when compared to longer-term goals, to quote Scarlett O’Hara, “Tomorrow is another day.”

It’s even more helpful to reaching your goals when your every-day actions and choices that fill our to-do lists align directly to your big priorities, the resolutions that matter most. Connecting the dots between the resolution (WHAT) and its implementation (HOW) helps you to achieve more. When you take even one action each day that brings you closer to the resolution you’re focusing on, you make actionable progress.

Each day, work to include even just one action that aligns to one of your big priorities for the year. For example, getting to the school concert for your children, no matter what is going on at work that day is an example of connecting dots on a resolution of Family First. Think of each day as a sort of Etch-a-Sketch, with the chance to erase the day that’s done and begin with a clean slate the next day. Each day is a new opportunity to get closer to and make progress on your big goals.

One High-Five Example

Many people categorize their resolutions into categories like Self, Family, Money, Business, and Future (our very favorite around here at FUTURES, for obvious reasons). As a goal-setter you could choose to focus on two different goals for one category like Family or Business. Another goal-setter might have 3 big goals related to Money like get out of debt by April 15, save $3000 by December 31st, and Sell the car by June 1.

Do whatever will work best for you in terms of number of goals per category, but keep your big goals to no more than five—to ensure you don’t create too many. If you can tick off your goals on one hand, you’ll be more likely to achieve them.

To Do or Not To Do?

Each day, make yourself a to-do list. Much will be tied directly to daily activities, of course, but by being mindful of your five big resolutions, you might be able to slip in an extra walk, plan ahead to get to the school event early, or simply plan a free night to be open to whatever family situation might be happening.

Most of us typically have more on our to-do lists than is feasible to complete in one day. Comparing all of the items on your list to your High-Five categories can help you to make better choices. By taking the extra few seconds to connect the dots between your daily to-dos and your big resolutions, you will be able to prioritize more effectively. Put a check or circle every daily action that actually helps to get you closer to your big goals. If a task doesn’t align to any of your big goals and is not urgent or required by others, ask yourself if it is a good investment of your time. Should Stan really wash the car today or should he finally try to sell those three extra pieces of furniture on a website instead? Which choice would be more closely aligned to a big goal of getting his house ready to sell?

This method of carefully comparing your High-Five big goals to what you really do each day can help you to reflect back on your progress on a weekly basis. When you notice days slipping by without being able to check or circle a “connect-the-dots” action that links a daily action to a bigger resolution, it’s a wake-up call. Take a look at this example worksheet to become inspired to create your own. You can create your list electronically or as a hard copy. What matters is that you make a list and connect your actions to your priorities.

Investing in Your Goals

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Future™, is brimming with helpful information about investments. If any of your High-Five big goals for the coming year are financially-driven, the information in this FREE program could be a great place to start. Check out topics like:

View fullsize

Fundamentals of Investing

Stocks

Mutual Funds

Bonds

Purchasing Investments

Portfolio Management

As you jump back into your first weeks back at school after Winter Break, connect-the-dots between your big resolutions and your day-to-day activities and must-do tasks. And remember, each new day is a fresh start!

Be a Big 3 Goalie!

Happy 2020. How’s your 2020 vision? As we ring in a fresh new year and a whole new decade, in fact, it’s important to take a step back to assess and reflect upon your progress during the past year. Try this from a personal and financial perspective. To create a new plan for a new year, you must first assess where you are.

Personal Goals

Are you excited to be embarking on a brand, new year? How was your 2019?  Are you pleased with your results? To assess how you did in 2019, ask yourself a few of these questions.

• What events, choices, changes, and decisions went well in 2019?

• What were my very best choices in 2019?

• What events, choices, changes, and decisions did not meet my expectations in 2019?

• What goals did I achieve?

• Where did my results fall short? Can I recognize any patterns?

• What new habit helped me in ways I didn’t expect?

• Did I form any poor habits in 2019 that I’d like to change in 2020?

• In what ways did I spend, save, and earn money wisely?

• What was my greatest success and biggest disappointment of 2019?

These are great questions to ask yourself as you begin to think about your new set of best practices for this new year. Who knows? You might even dream up some great new habits that will take you through this entire decade! First, though, you need to be clear about past your results and performance, understand new and current circumstances, and be ready and excited to take control of your FUTURE. Once you understand the past, are clear about your present, and positive about moving forward, it’s time to set your 3 Big Goals for 2020. JUST THREE.

Top Three Categories for Big Personal Goals

The top personal goals people set at the start of a new year typically fall into three big categories. We suggest that you begin your 2020 plan by creating and committing to one big goal in each category, hence our suggestion to create 3 big goals.

The first category is SELF. This includes goals around health, sleep, losing weight, getting more exercise, quitting a bad habit, and learning something new or reading more. These resolutions are often the most popular in January and are often become invisible shortly thereafter. Old habits are hard to break and new habits are equally hard to form. 

The second category is goals around FAMILY. These goals center around spending more time with family and friends, aligning your priorities to your time choices, more travel, cooking meals together, and living life to the fullest. These goals are usually longer term and as a result get a lot of discussion and not much action. It’s easy for life to eclipse goals in this category unless and until you make these goals into routines and everyone commits to them. How many books did you mean to read in 2019?

The third category is all about MONEY, saving money, saving up for special events or activities, investing wisely, being more organized and accurate in investments, paying more attention to personal finances and of course, setting and sticking to a monthly budget. Goals in this category are often the most concrete and of course the easiest to see. If you’re not organized, you could miss a lot of savings. Conversely, if you do become more organized,  you might discover a discount plan you’d have missed.

Goals Stand Alone and Work Together

As you set your big goals for 2020, thing about how all three of your goals will work together.

While each of these categories is separate, a goal in any of these three categories, self, family, and finances, falls into all three life categories. For example, career and job changes are often motivated by self (perhaps you’re not happy in your present job), family (perhaps you want to change jobs to have a shorter commute and get home to your family earlier each day) and finances (perhaps you want to earn more money). The financial benefits of changing jobs is often a motivator that helps both self and family; you might be able to travel more, you might be challenged in new ways, or taking a new job might help to reduce your debt. Each of these results will have an impact on you, your family, and your financial situation. As you can see from this scenario, your big goals will often overlap and benefit the various aspects of your life. As you craft your 2020 goals, consider how your three separate goals, one for self, another for family, and finally, a big financial goal will both stand alone and work together to help you have a wonderful and productive 2020.

Financial Goal Setting

As January unfolds, your 2019 end-of-year spending actions, personal financial reflections, and tax preparation activities can serve as helpful reminders of the value of setting smart financial goals for the new year.  Of course, as the incoming bills from holiday shopping make their way to your inbox and mailbox, they can provide a different sort of reality check and evidence that you want to approach 2020 with different and better financial goals.

While your 2019 financial performance is still fresh in your mind, now is an excellent time to plan to take a few crucial first-steps to help make 2020 an even better year. Because FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ focuses on Personal Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and of course, Investing, it is a terrific (and FREE!) resource to keep at your fingertips as you begin to map out your 2020 financial plan. To help you get started, the FUTURES team has posed some questions and conducted some research to help you get started. Just download the program, today!

Look Back to Look Ahead

As you start to plan, use a rear-view mirror and look at the concrete results of your 2019 financial choices. Ask yourself:

• Did I create a 2019 budget?

• If so, did I stick to it all year?

• If not, how long was I able to maintain this smart habit?

• Did I pay your bills on time?

• Did I worry a lot about money?

• Was I able to save any money in 2019?

• Was I able to save the amount you had planned to save?

• Did I invest your money wisely?

• How did my investments and other financial decisions turn out?

• What kinds of financial choices didn’t work?

• How could my 2019 results help me to create even better and smarter financial goals for 2020?

• Can I identify any financial habits I’d like to change?

Biggest Financial Priorities

To assess and design the right financial goals for you and your family, you must first define your biggest financial priorities for the year and clearly assess the financial demands of these priorities.

• Do you want to save up for one big purchase like a car?

• Are any of your children getting close to starting college?

• Are you hoping to be able to save up enough to send your kids to a local camp this summer?

• Are you planning a big change like moving at any point in this year?

• Are you in school and planning to graduate during this year?

• What about your job or work? What changes might be coming on that horizon?

By answering these big change questions, you can begin to identify your biggest financial priorities for 2020. Beyond these situational financial priorities, you’ll also have ongoing financial priorities. The rent needs to get paid on time, medical bills come in, surprises happen, and so forth. Many people are facing similar financial challenges. Here are some of the top financial goals that people are setting for 2020:

• Save more money.

• Get out of debt.

• Create an emergency find for surprises.

• Improve credit scores.

• Earn more money.

• Get smarter about finances to make better decisions.

• Use technology more to save time and be more thorough.

• Build a budget and stick to it.

• Be more disciplined with spending.

SMART Goals Work!

Each of these goals is actually not even a goal! In fact, as these goals are described here by people, they are really just hopeful wishes. To be an achievable goal, a goal must be SMART, Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely. To create a goal from “save more money” that meets the five parameters of a real goal, you must define it.

Falling Short is Better Than Nothing

Goals are best achieved one step at a time. It can be tough to hit all your big goals for a year, even when your goals are smart and you break them down into achievable segments and mini-goals. Some might say it’s nearly impossible. As a result of this all or nothing thinking, some people opt not to even try setting goals.

Falling short of a goal is not a good reason to avoid setting goals. What might happen if in the example above, you fell short of saving $3600 and only achieved 80% of your goal? Why, you would still have saved $3000! So, falling short shouldn’t stop you from setting goals. So long as you learn and correct your course along the way, you’re likely to make progress.

Goal setting in 2020 can help you shape a framework for what you want to experience and achieve in 2020. Big goals can help you envision your bigger FUTURE! By setting just three big goals and working incrementally to reach them, big goals can make a positive difference and help you to understand the full scope of work and commitment needed to create your bigger FUTURE. Remember to adjust and set new interim mini-goals that may be more realistic. Big goals for the year are important metrics and guides as you move from month to month.

Not all big goals will require a full year to accomplish. Some big goals may be short-term and achievable in just a couple months. Other big goals, like saving money to put your fourth grader through college, will likely take years to accomplish. It’s important to not become discouraged if you’re not quite meeting your big goals right away. Take a step back, reassess, and then try a new approach. It takes time, energy, smart habits, commitment, and tenacity to meet big goals. By choosing the 3 big goals that are right for you, you’ll be on your way to shaping a brighter, bigger FUTURE for your family, your class, and yourself.

Whatever your big goals may be for 2020, you’ll benefit from understanding more about Personal Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and Investing so begin by investing a bit of time to discover what you can learn from FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™. The price is free and the learning is priceless!

Join us in a few days for our next blog post called 365 Slices that focuses on how to align your biggest life priorities to the littlest actions you take every single day. Until then, Become a Big 3 Goalie!

It’s Taxing, Too

In this 7th blog post, the team at FUTURES is sharing 7 Ideas to help you navigate the volume of those end-of-year charity requests for donations that come your way at this time of year. You work hard to earn your money and strive to use it wisely all year long. Deciding if you want to donate, how you might donate, and how you might plan your donation strategy are important aspects of your personal financial model. In this FUTURES blog post, we’ll explore 7 ideas you might want to consider for your end-of-year giving strategy. If you’ve already made your 2019 donation decisions, check out these ideas to incorporate them into your 2020 giving plan. It’s never too soon to start wisely.

Answering End-of-Year Asks

With the end of the year just a few days away, there’s a good chance that you’re noticing an increase of solicitations in your snail mailbox as well as your inbox. These ballooning requests for annual giving campaigns and other holiday charity drives are typical at this time of year. There are several reasons for this last-season ask.

• First, many people elect to hold off on their gifting decisions until the end of the year. If bonuses or other cash inflows spark the chance to give more, waiting is a good idea. Charities know this and time requests accordingly.

• Other individuals elect to collect asks and requests all year long and wait until the end of the year to consider all asks at one time. This approach can help weigh and compare all giving options and can help those who want to make donations to make choices of charity and causes that align to their life priorities. Finally, other people wait until year end for tax purposes, hoping to increase the amount of money they can deduct from their taxes. Many people assess their year as a whole and opt to donate to yield a deduction that does some good.

Choose Wisely

Regardless of the reasons, waiting until the end of the year to make charitable donation decisions often means those decisions become last-minute ones, done just before the new calendar year begins. It’s a busy time and often folks find themselves giving to the charities at the top of their inbox or bill pile. It pays to take the time to choose wisely—for the charities and for your own bigger future.

FUTURES Planning Tips

In addition to the ideas in this post, check out the actual FUTURES program as you wrap up your 2019 financial situation and begin to consider your plan for 2020. While designed for students, the powerful and informative content of the 29 learning sections or modules in FUTURES is rich and valuable for anyone.

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ can help you maximize your year-end giving and more confidently make an impact on the organizations that mean the most to you. Full of great ideas about personal finance, economics, entrepreneurship, and investing, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is FREE, and that’s a plus to any budget!

IDEA 1: Fewer is Greater

As you consider the many options you likely have for annual campaigns, annual appeals, fundraising requests, and other charitable donations, start first by reflecting on what matters most to you and your family. Giving plans that are targeted and focus on the types of organizations that matter to you are often the most meaningful for both the charity recipients and you! You might feel pressure to give at least some small amount to every organization that asks for a donation. Why not consider a more focused approach instead?

Instead of giving a small donation to many different charities, how much of a difference might your gift make to one or two organizations that truly make a difference to you?

If you have allocated $300 as the amount of money you want to donate at the end of the year, you could share that money in many different ways.  You could make—

• 60 donations at $5 each.

• 30 donations at $10 each.

• 12 donations at $25 each.

• 6 donations at $50 each.

• 3 donations at $100 each.

• 2 donations at $150 each.

• Or, you could potentially make one single donation at $300.

How will it work best for YOU to slice your donation pie?

IDEA 2: A Little Bit of Planning Goes A Very Long Way

The end of the year can be an optimal time for many people to donate and most charities do make their biggest pushes when everyone is in the holiday spirit. By staying ahead of the curve and planning ahead, you can save a lot of time, stretch your donation dollars further, and increase the value of your gifts to both the organizations and your family. Planning your annual donation strategy is really no different than planning your monthly budgets, shopping budgets, or establishing a separate account for bigger spending demands like continuing education for your kids. They all require these four Cs: choices, consideration, care, and commitment.

Next year, instead of waiting until the last days of the year, begin to design your giving strategy at the start of the year. Make your plan easy enough to maintain it all year long.

• Create a folder on your desktop or dedicate a physical basket for Donation Requests in your home bill-paying space.

• Collect the various charity requests that resonate with you. Perhaps it is a favorite animal shelter, a medical facility that took great care of a family member, a religious organization that means a lot to you all year long, or even the local community center. Collect reminders for all of these.

• If a particular appeal or cause touches your heartstrings, make a note of this.

• Resist the urge to make a gift before you do your annual giving review.

• You might ask the charities that tempt you to want to give in the moment instead of waiting to reach back out to you in mid-November.

• This request lets the charity know of your interest and it triggers them to schedule their next asks. It also reduces the amount of mail you are likely to receive in the interim.

• It could even start a dialog that might inspire you to engage more directly with the charity in other ways, like volunteering or attending a few of their events during the year.

• While planning to make donations at the end of the calendar year works for many individuals, the realities of life can also impact your donation budget. So, you might want to budget for some incidental donations along the way.

• Think about those wrapping paper sales, bake sales, cookie and candy bar sales, and other spur-of-the-moment requests that come up during the calendar year. If your nephew is running in a charity 5K or your daughter’s band needs to raise money for new uniforms, these asks can impact your end-of-year donation budget.

• If you budget for these ongoing requests in your monthly plan, then these interim asks will not derail your overall giving strategy.

IDEA 3: Diligence Can Mean Deductions

Be sure to keep track of the donations you make. Ask for receipts. If you do end up donating to a cause or donate money at an event using cash or credit card, ask for a receipt. Most events, even simple bake sales, use payment apps on a mobile phone or tablet and can easily email a receipt. The same holds true for in-kind donation you might make like donating the furniture your uncle left to you or toys and clothing you no longer need.

The IRS requires you to produce a receipt for any donation of over $250 to acknowledge the gift and spell out whether the charity gave the donor anything in exchange for the donation—and if so, a good faith estimate of its value. For more information, go to irs.gov.

IDEA 4: Give to The Real Deal

While there are many different causes that may appeal to your charitable giving strategy, be sure to confirm the legitimacy of the charity. If you are hoping to deduct what you donate, you must take the time to confirm the cause is an eligible charity. The IRS provides lots of information about how to confirm a group’s 501c3 status to help you determine if the organization is a public charity or private foundation.

Churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and government agencies are eligible to receive deductible donations, even if they are not listed, provided they are following the rules as defined by the IRS. If you are hoping to receive a tax deduction for your donation, you will need to itemize your taxes. Do your homework before assuming you will receive a deduction for any sizable donation like a car, property, or furnishing. Many such categories have specified caps on what can be deducted.

IDEA 5: Timing Matters

Remember that timing matters when considering your donations and possible deductions. Even if you make a donation to a charity by using your credit card, the donation is considered to have been made in the year that you charged it, not the year when you ultimately pay the actual credit card invoice. This can become extremely relevant to end-of-year giving plans. In addition, tax laws often change, so be sure to double-check and confirm your giving strategy when it comes to receiving potential tax benefits.

IDEA 6: Cash, Check, Credit, and Beyond

While many people make donations using cash, writing checks, or pledging donations with their credit cards, it might be valuable for you to consider other ways that your long-term financial strategies can come into play. 401K plans, IRAs, insurance policies, stocks, and long-term appreciated securities can also be valuable giving options.

IDEA 7: Stock Up on Learning

Check out the Personal Finance strand of FUTURES for lots of information on how your investments might play a key role in your charitable strategy. Remember those STOCKing Stuffer stock certificate ideas from an earlier post? Just think of how you might be able to leverage such investments in your future if only you begin to discover more now.

Be on the lookout for our next posts in the coming weeks. We’ll lead off the year with ideas to help you establish smart and sustainable New Year’s resolutions that can add value to you, your family, your budget, and your overall financial literacy all year long. Until then, the FUTURES team wishes you and your family a healthy, happy, and safe big FUTURE!

Giving That Gets—With Kids!

With the holidays comes a huge helping of pre-Winter Break pressures as school quickly winds down, followed by lots and lots of family time. For teachers, spending time with your own kids can be a big transition from teaching those in your change at school. For families, the typical busy morning and afterschool departures and returns are suddenly replaced by a seemingly instant 24-7 holiday schedule.

Being with family and friends is part of what makes the holiday season so special. However, fast transitions and too many to-do lists often add to the stresses of the season. They can also take a further toll on even the best-planned budgets and spending strategies. So, the team at FUTURES is sharing some ready-to-use ideas in today’s blog post that reflect the creativity in the FUTURES Financial Literacy Program.  Full of great ideas about personal finance, economics, entrepreneurship, and investing, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is FREE, and that’s a plus to any budget!

Plan for Progress

It takes a lot of time and effort to shop smart, cook well, and donate generously before the season’s festivities begin. As to-do lists grow the time left dwindles, so this blog post focuses on enlisting the help and support of even your youngest charges. By applying a few inventive ideas, not only might you save some time and money, you might also increase awareness and maybe even invent a new family tradition or two!  

You might just discover some eager and energetic helpers right under your nose—literally. Set yourself and your family up for success by thinking ahead and considering a few of these suggestions so when it’s time to engage and work together on some of your pressing holiday activities, you’re ready!

Fabulous Family Helpers

Foster excitement and enthusiasm by asking your kids to help you this holiday season with quick, simple responsibilities that help keep you on track and also help your kids form some super executive functioning habits along the way. In addition to specifically asking kids to jump in, you can also challenge your kids to think of even more ways to help you, and by extension, how they can help others. When you ask even a simple question, you can spark a whole conversation that could enhance their perspective and share some undetectable vacation-time learning with your kids.

The Inline Wrapping Game!

After you’ve assessed what’s left to wrap, invite your kids to play this game. Kick off your idea casually. “So, how do you guys think we can get all of these gifts wrapped in time for the party at Aunt Sarah’s? I was thinking we could do an assembly line! Have you ever been part of one? It’s fun! First, let’s set up our assembly line by getting all of our supplies and deciding who will do what parts.”

• Divide up the tasks based on age and skill.

• Little fingers are often better at peeling off the backing on those stick-on bows than anyone else! Besides, what fun for them to put on the finishing touch.

• To avoid waste and confusion, match each gift and box size and pre-stage those ahead of time.

• Assign each individual family member a specific task. Tasks might include making boxes, adding tissue, having tape pieces ready, measuring paper, and peeling off price tags, making gift tags, and even recycling.

• Once this is done and your line is formed, your team can be ready for action.

• Choose an economical paper instead of expensive wrapping paper.

• You can even remind kids that they can even piece together wrapping or construction paper scraps to make a fun design.

• Supermarket paper bags turned inside out makes a great drawing surfaces so pull out the crayons and markers to have everyone sign and decorate the gifts.

• As you are working together, you can talk about famous assembly lines and discuss that even cars are made on assembly lines.

• You might even suggest that some local fast food spots prepare food in that manner.

• Invite your kids to think of other familiar assembly line ideas.

• And remember, cleaning up a part of the assembly line process!

• Don’t forget to take a few pictures.

Super Saver Shoppers

There are lots of money-saving and time-saving tasks you can invite your kids to do with you. Some will even give them a bit more math and literacy practice.

• Ask kids to scour newspapers and online ads for sales on food, supplies, or other household items you might need. Savings math is great practice. “How much are we saving with that brand?”

• Making a shopping list while you dictate is a great chance to practice brave spelling. It also makes a wonderful keepsake.

• If you’re out shopping, ask them to keep an eye out for any sales or specials.

• Discuss price comparisons for some fast subtraction practice.

• Remember, kids are amazing helpers in self-checkout lines, too. This could be another way to reinforce an assembly line. One child can hand the items to you, another can place them in bags, etc.

Charitable Chefs

Extra family time can present some fun opportunities to create together in the kitchen—for good. Cookie baking can be great math and measuring practice, not to mention a fine artistic outlet when it comes to the decorations. It can also become a special way to introduce charitable giving at your family gatherings.  

• In the kitchen, incorporate your kids into your meal-making process, encouraging them to look out for what you might need next. This is powerful sequencing practice.

• Recipe reading is great literacy practice.

• Measuring cups mean math in action.

• For older kids, you might use this together time to talk about how much it actually costs to make those cookies.

• Why not even inspire budding entrepreneurs? Just because it’s wintertime, entrepreneurship can still play a part at your family events. Transform the summer lemonade stand idea into a quick hot-chocolate shop at a family holiday party.

• You might let your younger kids set up a small table with their well-decorated baked goods for an impromptu family bake sale—with a built-in set of invited customers!

• Once kids do their hot chocolate and cookie math, they can donate their proceeds.

• Before the event, be sure kids research their charity of choice.

• You might even quietly encourage a relative to offer up a matching plan: for every dollar your kids raise, perhaps a familial benefactor will provide a matching gift.

• Why not encourage this kind of matching plan by offering up a special prize for any matching gifts like extra marshmallows?

Even Bigger Giving from Littler Givers

One of the more difficult lessons to impart to kids is key to what the season is about: giving. While children might be used to getting presents from family, friends, or even Santa, it can be more difficult for them to understand that others are not as fortunate. Begin conversations this season to explain that giving can mean a great deal to others.

The holidays are the perfect time to invite your kids to share some of their gently-used extra toys, books, and clothing. Together, choose a local charity or community center. Make it a special activity to collect, fold, and prepare items. Then, together you can donate them to those who need them. Giving and sharing items that are familiar can more effectively underscore the act of giving. Shopping for toy drives, working in soup kitchens, and visiting senior centers, and volunteering are all ideas that help to grow the awareness of the power of giving in your kids.

The Gratitude Attitude—With Our Compliments!

Finally, remember that giving does not need to be about shopping and spending money. Instead, for both kids and adults, giving is also about giving of one’s time and sharing special sentiments. One gift that costs nothing? Give a Compliment! Take time this season to write even a short thank-you note to let those you see and work with all year long know that their efforts matter and were noticed.

Fold some plain paper into a notecard by folding it twice. Write tour note on the inside and then invite your kids to draw on the outside of the cards or otherwise decorate them with handy craft supplies. 

We hope you enjoy a happy and healthy holiday season. We’ll be back with some savvy end-of-year charitable giving ideas in our next post before the new year. Until then, think about your bigger FUTURE and explore FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society.

T’is the Season for Social Responsibility

As we embrace this season of giving, it’s a powerful time of year to explore three other extremely powerful Ps—people, planet, and profits. We don’t mean that all of the people on the planet are shopping and all the businesses are making profits because of it. No, this connection between people, planet, and profit is deeper and lasts all year long, every year. This season is about giving to others, helping others, and sharing the joys of who we are and what we have with those who may benefit. Building upon this spirit of giving makes this a perfect time to instill in others the need for social responsibility that lasts all year long.

Powerful Questions

Think about these questions as you and your kids get ready for winter break. These topics and ideas can spark lots of adventures over the break from school.

• What responsibilities do people have toward one another—and toward the planet?

• Does this responsibility change when people are part of a corporation?

• What does it mean to be socially responsible, and why is this important?

• How can a for-profit company demonstrate social responsibility?

• How does all of this fit into the holiday season?

A FUTURE Opportunity to Learn More

These are just some of the types of questions kids will explore through a fun and focused activity from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program, designed to help kids in grades K through 8 today to understand the importance of financial literacy to contribute as engaged and informed citizens in the future. Tomorrow’s leaders can even help to shape our society today.

The following background and entrepreneurial activity work together to expose kids to the big concepts that relate to social responsibility. Why not try it over winter break or as soon as school is back in session?

But Corporations Aren’t People, Are They?

First, set the stage for the activity by asking kids to take a stab at defining social responsibility. Explain that it means that, as members of a society, people are responsible for the welfare of all citizens and we are also responsible for the health of the planet. When we apply this concept to business, it means much the same thing: corporations can and should find a balance between economic growth, or profit seeking, and responsibility to society and the environment.

This idea might sound very serious or hard to understand for younger students, but, when you connect it to what we expect the students in our classrooms and members of our families to do, there are many familiar undertones that helps to make this concept more relatable, even to younger learners.

Social responsibility for corporations is about acting responsibly and making business decisions that don’t hurt people, animals, or the environment while still bringing in profits. Social responsibility for corporations doesn’t stop once the profits come in—in fact, that’s when it should really kick into high gear! The social responsibility work of the corporation needs to keep going—and growing. Socially responsible companies and their leaders and entrepreneurs understand that it is through these profits that even more benefits can be realized. Profits can actually help corporations contribute more with, for, and to society by giving back, making differences, and adding value.

The 3 Ps

Socially responsible corporations focus on three Ps—people, planet, and profits. You and your kids can, too. When a company takes care if its employees, community, and customers, it is focusing on people. When a family takes care of its kids, pets, yard, and neighbors, this is the same thing. Introduce this concept to your kids, next.

A company takes care of the planet by being sensitive to how it manages its waste, air pollution, and safety practices. A class or family can do the same thing by not using plastic water bottles, for example. Recycling is another way every class and family can help.

When a company conducts business in ways that take care of people and the planet and also makes a business profit, the company is on its way to being a socially responsible company. When that company re-invests some of its business profit to help make the world a better place, the company is contributing as a socially responsible company in all 3 ways—people, planet, and profits.

Once kids understand a little more about corporate responsibility, they’ll be ready to put these ideas into action through a creative business scenario in the following activity. It’s time to create a corporate responsibility strategy focused on the three Ps: people, planet and profit.

If the Shoe Fits…

Imagine you’re the CEO of a new clothing and shoe company.

Your task is to create a proposal for your employees and board members to vote on that demonstrates the three Ps—people, planet and profits. With your family or classroom, discuss the pros and cons of each proposal and then have everyone vote on the best proposal. The proposal should address these points:

• What makes the winning proposal stand out?

• How does it successfully balance each of the three aspects of corporate responsibility?

• Can you envision an even better proposal with the best single idea from each “P” category (people, planet or profit)?

The 3 Ps at Holiday Time

Socially responsible corporations focus on three Ps—people, planet, and profits. Try these ideas to help engage your kids in the people, planet, and profits ideas.

Help Other People

Suggest one PAY IT FORWARD activity during the holidays. Perhaps you might buy toys for children, visit a local hospital, or serve food in a local shelter or community center. A quick visit to a senior center could be the highpoint of the season for many. Invite your kids to sing a few songs. It’s not the melody that matters—it’s the memories they’ll create and shape for both the singers and the listeners. If permitted, perhaps you might want to also share a quick video to inspire others to do the same.

Whatever you choose, be sure your kids are involved. Answer their questions and discuss the different ways that their efforts make a difference to others.

Gift the Planet

This holiday season, why not use only recycled wrapping paper or bows? Better yet, why not use gifts to wrap gifts? A T-shirt can be a fun wrapping for a book. Save on bows by using candy or markers to decorate boxes. Pick up a few of those inexpensive recycled shopping totes to use as gifts that can hold lots of other gifts. And remember, ‘tis the season to recycle. Reuses old boxes, wrap items in tissue only, and get creative about ways to save trees as well as money this holiday

Think about a longer-term way to gift health to the planet by considering a gift that helps like a composter, real glassware instead of disposables, or the fun gift of a reusable straw. Talk about a perfect stocking stuffer.

Profit from the Profit

As you are making your online gift selections this holiday season, take the extra minute to check out what the company says about its socially responsible activities. Why not choose to add to the profits of a company that is socially responsible to help ensure that your dollars go further and that buying a great gift also does good for others.

Spend Time AND Money

Take a few fun field trips over winter break. Many recycling facilities offer tours and kids love this adventure and it heightens everyone’s awareness. Don’t be surprised when your kids begin to remind you about taking even small steps to save the planet. Encourage your kids to become Planet Advocates. This is another great winter break activity. Help your kids research facts about how everyone can act small to save big!

Holiday Break Ideas

If watching a team make order from trash is not on your list of holiday things to try, why not try these ideas to help kids recognize that understanding a corporation’s choices can and should inform the purchasing choices your class, team, or family makes.

• Pop over to the local science center to explore some exhibits about our planet.

• Swing by the library to research a few topics.

• Check out some movies about our planet. National Geographic has some amazing ones.

• Do some sleuthing on your own to scope out those companies that truly are engaged in socially responsible activities.

What the FUTURE Holds

No matter how you opt to spend your time over the holidays, it’s likely you’ll come into contact with many corporations. See if you can spot the ones who take their social responsibility seriously. It just might influence your purchasing decisions going forward.

In a few days, we’ll be back with our next FUTURES blog post called Kid Patrols! By putting your kids in charge of these few, fun holiday habits, you’ll all quickly discover how these ideas can visibly save your family some money, build some festive holiday community energy, and echo the essence of the season through saving, giving, and donating.

Until then, we also hope you enjoy the other 3 Ps of this season—patience, prosperity, and of course, PEACE.

Stock Up on Learning: A Great Holiday Stocking Stuffer!

As the holidays draw closer, are you scrambling to find a gift for your kids that will have special meaning and might even some long-lasting value and a lot of fun? Look no further. In this 4th blog post, you’ll discover a terrific holiday gift that can last all year long and can also be a powerful and enlightening learning experience that won’t even feel like learning! On top of that, this is one great gift you don’t even need to wrap!

Today we’re taking a page from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program’s Investing strand to teach your kids about stocks and investments—first hand. This year, why not invest in a gift your whole family or class can experience? Buy a few different shares of stocks and then make joint decisions about your investment as the year progresses.

These topics might sound out of reach for younger—or even older—students, but after learning some key terms and the main decisions involved in investing, they’ll be thinking like future stock brokers in no time. If you’re not familiar with investing and the stock market, this post and the amazing tools in the FUTURES program, will give you a quick overview or refresher. Remember, you always have the entire FUTURES program at your fingertips—and it’s all FREE.

What’s It Called?

First, let’s review a few key terms:

What is a stock?

A stock represents ownership in a company. A person who owns a share—called a shareholder—is allowed to vote on decisions made by the company.

What is a share?

Think about a pizza. The pizza represents a company. Each piece is a share of the company. Each piece of the pizza is an equal share.

What is a dividend?

A dividend is a sum of money paid periodically by a company to its shareholders out of its profits. A dividend is paid out periodically.

To Sell or Not to Sell?

To sell or not to sell: this is the big question when it comes to investing. When a stock value goes up after the shareholders have purchased it, shareholders can choose to sell their stock and receive the money they earned. However, when stock is sold, shareholders are no longer part owners of the company and can’t earn any future dividends.

To Risk or Not to Risk?

Stocks are considered to be a risky investment. Unlike a bank that guarantees a particular rate of interest and can ensure that you won’t lose the money you deposit, while stocks can increase in value after shareholders purchase shares, they can just as easily dramatically drop in value, too. Even if an investor researches a company and feels confident about a decision to invest and buy shares in that business, the company might still do poorly and the investor can potentially lose money.

This easy-to-follow downloadable flowchart will guide you and your kids in making decisions about their STOCKing GIFT when the price of their share is up or down. Download it here.

The Holiday Gifting Process

Some families make the decision to do stock selection ahead of time in order to make their stock purchase before the holidays so they can present the stock as an official gift. Others opt to make the “stock shopping” experience part of the gift. Many a family meeting and small-group class discussion have taken place on this topic. Either way, you and your kids will have lots of chances to make your own investment decisions together!

If you decide to engage your kids in the selection process, include even your youngest investors. When you’re working with younger kids, help them to gather financial news stories about a few publicly traded companies with available stock. Older kids can typically research news stories on their own. Tech-minded kids might decide to research Apple, while kids into sports or fashion might dive deep into news about Nike. Encourage kids to think about products they use every day. Clothing companies, foods they enjoy, and social media companies also are good directions for kids to explore.

This quick process works well if you want to involve your kids in the stock selection process.

• Invite kids to make a list of three different company suggestions.

• Coach them to choose based on products that they think are successful, profitable, and have a chance of lasting long into the future.

• After all contributors have had the chance to share their ideas and tell why they believe in their company choices, identify similarities across the ideas.

• Ask your little group to narrow down the choices to two companies.

Choose Two!

Once you and your kids settle on two top companies, share that your little investing team has a fixed amount of money to invest. Consider choosing a dollar amount that is easy for kids to compute. Depending upon the two final choices, a fixed dollar amount of $200 might allow you to purchase more stocks in one company than the other. You could take a vote or opt to divide your investment amount across both finalist companies, buying fewer shares in each company.

Once your team has made its stock purchase, have them consider the latest news about the company or suggest two or three possible scenarios, based on the current status of the company.

If the company they’ve chosen happens not to be in the news at the moment, ask these “What IF” questions to propose some hypothetical scenarios that could prompt their buy, sell, and hold decisions:

• What if the company loses a big deal?

• What if the company is coming out with a new product?

• What if the company just gave a lot of money to a worthy cause?

• What do these events tell you about the company?

• Will you continue to invest, sell your shares, or buy even more shares in the company?

It’s Decision Time

1. As the year begins, meet periodically about the investment over a weekend breakfast or a morning meeting in class each month.

2. As a group, you can sort through available information and think about questions that need to be answered and how you’ll find those answers.

3. Together you can analyze the factors that are likely to affect the prices of the stocks and then decide to buy, sell, or hold.

4. Prompt them to review the flow chart above.

5. Finally, it’s decision time! Should your team decide to buy, sell or hold their stocks in Company X?

6. Kids should be able to explain clearly why they think your team should make its decision.

7. Coach kids to back it up their views with information from the news and your scenarios.

Investing—in Everyone’s Bigger Future

From stocks and bonds to low- and high-risk investments to mutual funds, the nuances of investing can be intricate; this is why the FUTURES Investing strand is so important. In these stand-alone sections and lessons, your kids will define investing and learn why investing is a beneficial practice. Beginning to understand the process of choosing a stock includes reading financial information, researching simple information, and comparing the stock to its peers. With the help of FUTURES easy-to-do worksheets and hands-on learning strategies, kids and adults can wrap their heads around even complicated investing details.

Investing in one's future is a key part of life and starts long before adulthood and entering the workforce. This is why it's so important to help kids understand that Financial Literacy is a powerful tool, designed to help them begin to plan and invest in the bigger future they want for themselves. Even just one share of stock as a holiday gift can get your team of young investors off to a real-world start!

What Kind of Future are You Investing In?

Hands- and minds-on activities like this that allow kids to imagine what they might like to do in the future is a key developmental strategy. It provides the foundation for focused goal-setting. The whole FUTURES program gives kids a solid framework within which to understand the complex world of investing. Providing different exercises and opportunities for your kids to put themselves in that “future” world NOW helps jumpstart kids to develop their own investment philosophies, a key stepping stone to full financial literacy.

With the help of the Investing Strand and FUTURES, you and your kids will not only be able to understand the complicated world of stocks, your kids will also begin to understand how to start investing in their own bigger FUTURES.

How’s this for a STOCKing Stuffer gift idea that keeps on giving? So, this holiday season, why not consider adding a simple stock gift to your shopping list. You’ll all discover many valuable dividends as a result of even a very small investment and even create a few long-lasting memories with your young investors!

Check back for our next FUTURES blog post 5 entitled T’is the Season for Social Responsibility for 3 powerful Ps that can spark lots of fun conversations over this holiday season.

Hidden Holiday Budget Breakers: Where Did All That Money Go?!

While it can be challenging to set and stick to a budget for holiday gift shopping, that facet of the holiday budgeting is actually one of the easiest to estimate and track. While you may ideally want to splurge on a fantastic new bike for your child, there are many other options that will delight your child and help you stick to your overall gift-giving budget. We may not like the other options as well, but we do have choices that are easy to see and consider.

 When it comes to other aspects of this holiday season, there are many expenditures that sneak up on your bank account. The focus of this blog post from the team at FUTURES is to shed some light on seven big holiday budget drainers. From events to logistics, it can all add up to ultimately big subtractions from your already-strained December monthly budget.

Want to boost your own financial literacy this holiday season? Check out the one financial literacy program that is ALWAYS FREE—FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society.™ This amazing free program covers the key financial literacy topics of Personal Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and of course, Investing, and could be a big help in managing your holiday budget surprises. 

 These invisible demands are easier than ever to miss these days. With the ability to quickly insert a credit card or hold your phone over the checkout kiosk, it’s easy to lose sight of the many out of-pocket expenses that happen over the holidays. The following Seven Surprise Costs can sneak right up on your budget if you aren’t mindful, so let’s explore each one. Check the Try This! alternate ideas for each, too.

1: That FREE Event is Far from Free

• There’s a free concert at the park.

• Ice skating is free on Tuesdays from 4 until 6.

• The mall is offering a free chance for your kids to sit on Santa’s knee.

• The local paper has a map showing six different free tree-lighting events this weekend.

• Your office group isn’t going out for drinks this year; to save money, everyone’s baking cookies and you’ll celebrate in the break room. 

It’s great to take advantage of these festive holiday happenings to get in the spirit of the season. While each of these events is technically FREE, check out these potential hidden expenses.

 Free Concert at the Park: The concert is free, but the hot chocolate for all six of you isn’t. At $3.00 a cup plus a little something to put in the vendor’s tip cup you’re down a $20-bill and the singing hasn’t even begun.

Try This: Plan head and pack a thermos and some paper cups. Host your own little hot chocolate picnic while you wait for the concert to begin.

Free Skate on Tuesdays from 4 until 6: Free Skate is great and you don’t need to pay to be on the ice, but the skate rental fee is still $6.00 per child and how can you not buy your thirsty kids a bottle of water? On the way home, you realize it is far too late to begin to cook dinner, and even with that coupon, the pizza set you back another $10.

Try This: Call ahead to confirm the price of skates. See if you can borrow some. Free Skate Night is a great night to pop some taco fixings in the crock pot to be sure there’s a warm and economical dinner waiting for your hungry little skaters when you get home. 

Santa’s Knee is Free: While Santa’s knee may be free, the photo isn’t. It’s a lot of pressure to choose the smallest photo package or to resist that fancy frame Grandma would love. Even a free visit with Santa and a quick photo on your cell phone can be costly if you yield to the temptation to see your child’s sweet face on a mug. 

Try This: If a visit to Santa is super important, try going early to avoid the lines. This can help you get in and out more quickly, making temptations easier to avoid. Consider that coffee mug; what matters is your child’s sweet face, not Santa’s. Why not wait until after the holidays to order a personalized coffee cup on sale?

 Not-so Free Tree Lighting: Free tree-lighting isn’t free when there’s a fee to get you there. The events are free, but transportation for such adventures can be pricey. Even buses and commuter trains can be expensive. Depending upon where the events are located and how familiar you are with the areas, you might end up making less economical choices than you might in your own more familiar neighborhood.

Try This: Scope out the neighborhood and know the public transportation schedules, keeping in mind that holiday schedules can be different. Also, check out your preferred transportation methods. Some trains offer free transportation at certain hours and on holiday weekends. You might also invite another family, carpool, and share the price of parking. That thermos and those pre-packed snacks from home can do wonders for keeping your holiday budget intact.

 Costly Cookies: Cookies in the break room cost money, too. While you’re not spending on drinks for yourself and/or colleagues, making cookies can still be pricey. The ingredients and the time can add up. If you opt to make a fragile creation, you might further decide that the less-expensive train is out that day and decide instead to drive and instead to protect and transport your culinary creations. When you add in the $25/day for parking near your office to your ingredients list, those are some very expensive cookies.

Try This: Keep in mind that everyone will be bringing treats and even your hungry colleagues can only consume so much. Instead of giving up one night to bake and another to decorate, why not budget your time and finances differently? Research a bakery near the office. Request that they whip up a dozen fun or fancy cupcakes that you can swing by and pick up just as you head into the office on cookie day. These cupcakes are sure to cost less money, they’ll look wonderful, and you can still hop on the train to get to the office. You just might be the hit of the celebration with those sea-salt caramel cupcakes you only had to buy and pay for! Worried about showing up with only a dozen? Think quality, not quantity. Cupcakes are easy to share, too. Why not cut a few in half as you unbox your contributions. Besides, store-bought or home-made, cupcakes are never calorie-free and this approach lets everyone savor a taste!

2: Park the Hurried Angels Pay

Parking at malls may be free, but those dings to your bumper are anything but. In a hurry? Stayed too long at the store and got a ticket? Forget your commuter pass and had to pay extra? Even public transportation costs add up. When you consider the hidden costs of a few phone clicks away from a private car service like Uber or Lyft, the dents in your budget start to grow even bigger.

Try This: Add a “commuting” allowance to your budget to avoid these surprises. Keep an extra few dollars tucked away for quick transportation emergencies. Since it’s often easier to drive to do your shopping, why not plan to shop with a friend, share the cost of gas, and alternate to lighten the transportation burden on each of you. Lastly, try ordering online to save yourself all this extra expense. Just be sure to confirm the shipping terms and return policy to avoid surprises later.

3: Did You Want Fries with That Gift?

Shopper’s Paradise is often an elusive feeling during the holidays. It’s easy to find yourself momentarily delighted with that clearance coat for Uncle Max that is exactly his size. Two minutes later, you’re at the end of a very long line. When it’s finally your turn, they’re out of register tape, they’re out of boxes, and your coupon is expired! As your head starts to swirl, you remember you forgot to eat lunch. While the coat was budgeted on your gift-giving list, the fast-food snack you were too hungry to resist wasn’t.

Try This: Remember to stock your pockets with quick, nourishing snacks. Keep coupons on your phone, and save boxes in the back of the closet so you won’t need to stand in a second line or dash out to buy a box right before you see Uncle Max!

4: It’s a Wrap

While we painstakingly budget for the gifts we need to purchase for others, it’s easy to overlook the trimming for these gifts. The price of wrapping paper, ribbons, bows, tape, and tissue can swiftly swell to a very real number. On top of that, if gifts must be mailed, postage is often a further surprise to your budget.

Try This: At the end of this holiday season, why not stock up and stash away  some much-discounted wrapping paper and other clearance-priced supplies for next season?  As for postage, if you can order and ship directly from an online store, you might come out ahead, especially if stores are offering free shipping at the holidays. Many online stores also permit a free gift message, even if wrapping is extra.

 5: Table for Six

Actual celebration days can be full of both stress and hidden costs. While it is difficult for some to avoid the stresses that can come with extended family visits and celebrations at the holidays, the hidden costs related to hosting major family meals is often a surprise to your budget’s bottom line. Even when everyone brings a covered dish, there are extra hidden costs associated with having the event in your home. From extra household supplies to more food and drinks than usual, entertaining costs add up. If it’s your turn to host this holiday season, be sure to include the foods, supplies, and any clean-up costs on your holiday planning budget. If the celebration is at another family member’s home this season, you still need to budget for gasoline or other travel expenses, the cost of ingredients in your covered dish or dessert, and even the cost of an oversized heavy-duty foil pan.

Try This: Come up with a crafty, inexpensive way to decorate the table. If you’re planning on place cards, opt for something simple and inexpensive like writing names on hand-cut paper snowflakes. If you need to prepare the main course, shop ahead and look for sales. When others ask what they can bring, suggest that in addition to their food contributions, everyone bring some soft drinks, someone else bring a big bag of ice, and another guest brings some disposable paper goods. This approach helps better distribute the hidden costs of hosting an event in your home. And of course, when it’s time to clean up and your guests offer to help, say yes!

6: Many Unhappy Returns

Did you ever forgot you bought a gift only to discover after the holidays, hidden in the back of the closet? What about that extra-small reindeer sweater your great aunt thought would surely fit you? While her sense of your size might be flattering, a store credit or the chance to exchange this for something you’ll truly wear, is likely more appealing. If the gift you wish to return was purchased online, be mindful of their return shipping policies. It could cost you more to return that reindeer sweater than you realize. While stores are often generous with return and exchange windows at the holidays, many policies have hidden costs like shipping fees, restocking fees, and a no refund policy.

Try This: When it comes to making returns, stay organized and be prompt. Keep gift receipts with the items and head off to make your returns as soon as possible. The sooner you return or exchange your purchases and gifts, the more accommodating stores are likely to be. If you can only return for an in-store credit, keep track of this found money, note the credit’s expiration date, and tuck these credits in a safe place. If you find yourself stranded in a long return line, try to be understanding. Kindness goes a long way. Before heading into the return line, check through the store to find another of the item you wish to return or exchange. This makes it easy for the cashier to make your return. Your thoughtfulness might just gain you a full refund.

 7: Getting Carded!

Last but not least, a major holiday expense that it’s easy to overlook is the cost of creating or choosing, printing or buying, and mailing a long list of holiday greeting cards. Custom-designed family photo holiday cards, for example, may be a tradition or seen as expected in your family, but these photo-and-foil style holiday greeting cards can be very expensive. Stop to consider not only the cost of the card itself, but also the price to include extra envelopes, mailing and return labels, and of course, the postage. These cards are often oversized, hiking up the postage costs even more.

Try This: Instead of opting for a fancy photo holiday greeting card this year, why not consider approaching this tradition differently? What if you crafted a lovely email and attached a family photo, taking the time to personally connect individually with recipients, asking how their family is faring this year, and perhaps even begin a true exchange? You might also be on the lookout for seasonal specials on blank cards, stock up on a few different designs, and then tuck in a home-printed photo of the kids. Lastly, consider sending e-cards this year. There are lots of fun and animated greetings that are sure to delight recipients, without straining your wallet.

FUTURES™ is Always FREE!

As you work to tackle your hidden holiday expenses, remember to check out the one financial literacy program that truly is 100% FREE—every day! FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is the FREE, groundbreaking Financial Literacy Program that has 29 different sections across four instructional strands: Personal Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and of course, Investing. Each section begins with a detailed ready-to-use planning guide and is brimming with handouts and resources—including worksheets, charts, and other handy tools. Who knows? There might be someone on your list who would love to receive this program as a gift!

Early next week, look for Post 4, where we will share with you how to Give a Gift for the Future: Stock up on Learning during this holiday season. Until then, when it comes to hidden costs, keep your eyes open and your wallet closed!

Winning Game Plans Save Money!

This time of year can be full of joy, celebration, and festivities. For many, it can also be a time of worry, anxiety, and overspending—but, it doesn’t have to be! Check out these ten family-focused ideas for ways to start smart and save some money during this holiday season. Even if you can only try one or two of these ideas, you might become inspired to come up with a few more that work for your family!

1: Cash Counts!

Credit cards are often tempting when it’s time to shop during gift-giving season. The convenience of these cards can often backfire when the bills are due. This first strategy can help—a lot. Once you create a budget for your shopping plans, why not consider paying with cash? After all, with this approach, you can only spend what’s actually in your pocket. As with all forms of cash and credit, exercise care when carrying around a lot of cards or cash because safety should always be the first order of business.

2: Hold the Latte

Shopping, holiday errands, and too many events can mean a lot of running; this can lead to a skipped meal or two. It might also make the luxury of indulging in a supersized, foamy peppermint latte and a warm gingerbread cookie seem like necessities for survival. With lines, traffic, and too much to do, this feeling’s no surprise. It’s also no bargain. This tip can help.

By skipping these higher priced and higher calorie snacks on the go, it’s possible to save enough money to buy an extra gift or two! The price of such snacks can tip the scales at $8 to $10 dollars. Switching to a simple drip coffee and a granola bar from your backpack even just twice a week between now and Christmas, could result in an extra $50 to spend on gifts. Now, THAT’s a very sweet treat!

3: Quality, Not Quantity

These days, gift giving might more accurately be described as GIFTS-giving. In today’s high volume-based world, multiple gifts per person can be an expected norm. Instead of buying several smaller gifts per person, reverse it. Truly listening for hints about one special gift that might be at the TOP of your recipients’ wish lists. By thoughtfully considering, researching, and shopping for that nicely made red sweater for your aunt, for example, you can potentially invest the same money and give one longer lasting gift that she will wear and enjoy for years to come. Three smaller gifts at $15 each might not mean nearly so much as one beautiful $45 sweater.

4: Dollar Store Delights

Not all gifts need to be store bought or expensive. What gifts could you and your family create together? Could you bake and decorate cookies and then line a round foil pie pan with a home-made holiday construction paper snowflake? Top this treat with a festive, inexpensive dish towel from the local dollar store, and all that’s left to add is a card. The dollar store is a treasure trove for lots of economical gift-making supplies. Pick up a few plain ceramic coffee cups, write recipients’ name or initials in permanent marker, and tuck in some tea bags or candy. Why not buy plain ornaments at the dollar store and spend some family time decorating them with glue, odd buttons, dots of nail polish, and ribbon or yarn scraps? By making the decoration styles random, even kids will relax and discover there’s no wrong way to decorate a keepsake ornament.

5: The Gift of Time
Remembering that time can be more valuable than money is a great gift-giving strategy to add to your planning. What about creating some simple IOUs for friends and family? Volunteer to babysit, walk a friend’s dog, or bring in the trash cans for a busy neighbor during the winter months. CARPOOL or ERRANDS Certificates with no expiration dates could be a life-saver to a friend. The financial cost of these gifts is low, but the consideration and value to those who receive them can be high, if not priceless.

6: Trade-Ya!
Along the same lines as the IOU and homemade customized gift certificates described in idea 4, suggest to friends and family that you dream up a few TRADE-YA ideas. For example, if you can sew, offer to hem three pairs of pants in exchange for two ready-to-freeze casseroles. By choosing to trade activities that come easily to one of you but are a struggle for the other, everyone wins. This money-saving idea has an added bonus: TRADE-YA gifts set a wonderful example for kids. Beyond modeling that not all gifts are tangible, you can work together as a family to bring these special gestures to life for family and friends. Everyone can contribute. If you take a photo while you’re working together, you can give an inexpensive keepsake, too! Making memories is a great trade.

7: New Traditions
Sometimes, holiday traditions like pricey tickets for a holiday performance or feeling pressured to buy the expensive photo package of your kids on Santa’s lap can feel like mandatory expenditures. Why not choose more carefully this year, perhaps opting for only one tradition that costs money and introducing some new traditions that are low-cost or even free.

Pop over to the library or scope out a free, public-domain version of  holiday story on your phone to create your own home performance by reading or even acting out a new favorite holiday tale. Each child can play a part, too. Don’t forget to take a photo or two! Look for tree-lighting neighborhood events, community center festivities, or invent new family traditions like taking a walk to see the holiday lights or inventing festive names for economical dinner ideas. You and your family will treasure these new activities especially if you come up with them together.

 8: Location, Location, Location
While after the holidays is the perfect time to stock up on clearance decorations for next year, this year’s budget can quickly become strained with last-minute shopping for new decorations. If you pull out the box of old decorations only to discover that it’s less plentiful than you remembered, don’t despair—and don’t go shopping. Try switching up what you have saved from past seasons. Change a ribbon color, put those tattered pinecones in a different basket or flower vase with some crinkled tissue for color. Most of all, swap locations. By placing old decorations in new places, they’ll look new to guests, to your family—and to you!  

9: Keep It Together for Happy Returns
Stay organized this season. Don’t tuck receipts and change in coat pockets or shopping bags. Instead, form the habit of putting every receipt in one central and consistent place in a big envelope labeled November and December Receipts. This way, if you discover you need to return a gift you purchased earlier, you can more easily make time to get your money back. In addition to convenience, keeping all receipts in one place lets you make fast tallies of what you’ve spent to date so you’re ready to pay the bills when they come due. Keep loose change in a bowl or cup nearby, too. You might even discover you’ve saved up enough pocket change to treat yourself to that one last peppermint latte before this seasonal treat disappears from the menu board.

10: Become a Sales Sleuth
At this time of year, it seems like every store and website is promoting a BIG sale, but be careful. Sometimes sale prices are not nearly so reduced as claims promise. Making enough time to research and check for best and lowest prices before you make bigger purchases can result in big savings. By comparing prices ahead of time, you are an informed buyer. Not only will recipients value what you buy, you’ll receive a real value, too. Spending more time ahead of time can save your budget big-time, too.

11: Say NO to SnowBILL Fights
After all the gifts are all opened, it’s quickly back to school at the start of the new year. It’s also the start of payback time as the bills come pouring in. Credit card debt is a serious matter and debt and interest payments can add up quickly. Be prepared.

Make your payback plan NOW. By calculating your budget, sticking to it, and planning out beforehand how long it will take you to pay down what you owe, you’ll feel in control and be better able to contain spending. By giving yourself a HARD Shopping Stop Date, you will limit those SnowBILLs—helping to prevent your interest payments from snowballing. Now that’s a great gift to yourself for the start of 2020!

 Get Smart from the Start with FUTURES!

These ten ideas can help you stay on track during the holidays. If you want some more specific, easy-to-grasp-and-apply information about Personal Finance, check out the Personal Finance Strand of FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™. This FREE, groundbreaking Financial Literacy Program has 29 different sections across the four strands. Each section begins with a detailed ready-to-use planning guide and is brimming with handouts and resources—including worksheets, charts, and other handy tools. This school program “travels” smoothly outside of classrooms, making it easy to introduce and weave in financial education topics in after school programs, home-school settings, and even around the family dinner table. In the late-night hours, turn worry time into learning time with FUTURES.

Early next week, look for Post 3, Hidden Holiday Budget Breakers, where we bring into clearer focus all of those fuzzy, forgotten holiday costs that can trip up even the most committed holiday budget planners. 

Holidays Express!

T’is the season to go shopping! Welcome to December. Did you know that during this holiday season we actually have six fewer shopping days between Thanksgiving and Christmas than we did last year? It’s all a function of the calendar, of course, but this express time window plays a key role in holiday spending, too.

Mindful Reminders!

We can’t think of a better time of year to be mindful of financial literacy. That’s why your FUTURES™ team will post 12 Days of Blogging! during this holiday season. Every few days between today and the first week of January, we’ll share seasonal posts filled with ideas, reality checks, strategies, and great ways to connect with your kids about financial literacy on these action-packed spending days—and nights!

 A Financially Literate Holiday Season

The FUTURES team knows all about Financial Literacy and how to integrate this critical skill set into your family and classroom. From Personal Finance and Economics to Entrepreneurship and Investing, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is the groundbreaking Financial Literacy Program that empowers students BEFORE High School—to achieve their best success AFTER High School. And, unlike the other items on your shopping list, this program is FREE!

Because this time of is year is so busy, we know you likely won’t have time to dive into the whole FUTURES program even though it IS free; time is at a premium. So, these twelve posts will be rich with relevant, easy-to-apply FUTURES concepts and ideas that you can quickly incorporate into this holiday season both in the classroom and around the kitchen table.

Why We Buy

This tightened Thanksgiving-to-Christmas timeframe doesn’t correlate to consumers doing less shopping. In fact, the reverse is often true. Time compression makes many people feel an urgency that translates into spending even more money in less time! Expedited shipping fees, less time to scope out coupons and discounts, limited inventory choices, short deal windows, and too many confusing sales are symptoms of a compressed shopping season and often increase the amount of money that buyers spend because temptations abound!

 People tend to fall into several different categories when it comes to the reasons that they justify spending more—

• What other choice do I have? I need to buy gifts.

• I’ll forget about my debt until the bills come.

• I’m luckier than most; after all, my only worry is money.

• I don’t want my kids to feel the disappointment I felt as a child.

• It makes me so happy to buy for others and give great gifts!

 Worry All The Way

Whatever reasons might ring most true for you, this time of year is often about spending—and over-spending. Credit cards make it even easier to spend now without considering the interest, debt, and overdrawn anxiety that is soon to follow. Phone ads, commercials, banner ads, and videos tend to focus on shopping, deals, the need to BUY IT NOW! But BUY NOW all too quickly morphs into PAY LATER–and later is not far away. It’s easy to get caught up in and distracted by events, excitement, and traditions. While it’s easy to push away those nagging worries, in truth, most of us worry all the way, anyway. If this scenario feels familiar, check out the Loans and Credit section in the Personal Finance Strand of FUTURES for a quick refresher. You might even want to do a few of the activities with your kids. It’s never too early to foster financial literacy.

Because gifts are often stashed in hiding spots, it’s easy to forget all that’s been purchased until it’s time to get wrapping. It’s only when it’s time to step back and wrap that many of us actually see all of our purchases in one place. This is when the reality of what’s been spent sinks in. By this point, however it’s too late to undo much of the damage.

Start Smart

Do you often hear the words, “But, I need it!” or “Here’s my HAVE-TO-HAVE list for this year!” from your children, students, or even your partner? This season is an ideal time to help those you love, including the young people in your life, to become more aware of their own financial responsibility, too. Try these two quick strategies to get your small group focused on what really matters—starting with you.

Checking Your Lists

A great way to control what you spend at this time of year is to have a plan. Before you ask for anyone else’s lists, be sure to make one of your own. It’s the most important list you’ll make.

To stay on budget, one must have a budget, so before you begin to spend in earnest this season, stop and assess exactly how much money you can afford to spend. Use a budgeting form like the one below to help you consider both obvious and hidden expenses.

Do the Math

Before you ask for gift lists, do the math. Calculate how many people you’re buying for. If you have three kids, a parent, two siblings, and four dear friends who always buy for you, consider assigning categories to each group. Can you afford to spend $15 on each friend? Are you the only person buying for your kids? What percentage of your budget should be dedicated to them? Can you suggest that your family draw names from a hat and each person chooses one extended family member to buy for in order to give one more significant gift? Why not propose a limit so everyone spends the same amount?

When you begin with your budget, and look at the list of gift recipients on your list, you may discover you need to pare down your list or get more creative in your gifting approaches. (More on this topic in this weekend’s post.) 

Set Expectations, Get Options

Now that you know what your resources look like, you’ve begun to shape your own expectations. Next, it’s time to set the expectations of those for whom you’re shopping. One way of setting the stage is to share the scope of what you can do. Perhaps you begin by explaining that this year you hope to be able to buy each person one nicer gift like a coat or one new game. By giving examples, you are clarifying what you mean by nicer so no one is disappointed when gifts are opened. Even the nicest coat pales in comparison to a hoped-for new cell phone or the hottest new tennis shoes.

When you ask others for ideas, be clear about what you want to know. Ask for three different ideas for a bigger gift in the range of X dollars and ask for five ideas for three smaller gifts in the range of Y dollars. While these discussions might reduce the level of surprise by your recipients, it equally reduces your own surprise when the billing cycles roll around. Asking for options helps everyone know what to expect. You’ll know you’re spending your hard-earned money on something that recipients want, you’re not boxed into overpaying for just one item, and there’s still an element of surprise when gifts are opened. Your recipients will also be prepared for fewer, more meaningful gifts.

Underneath It All

Under the colorful, active trimmings of the holiday season, at the heart of all your planning, purchasing, and paying actions, you’ll discover financial literacy.

The four strands of the FUTURES program are hard at work all through this season. Economics and Personal Finance lead to Investing in gifts that matter to others and that you can afford to give while tapping into your Entrepreneurial talents for those more creative gift-giving ideas that work for recipients—and your budget.

Jumpstart your own financial planning this holiday season by checking out the Personal Finance strand of FUTURES. It’s full of worksheets and ideas you can apply all month long. In fact, click here to download the entire program. We’ll be back in a few days with our next post, Winning Game Plans Save Money!

The Best Investment of All!

What a Month!

Well, we've certainly covered a lot of ground over the past 30 days during Financial Literacy Month, haven't we? From mutual funds and lemonade stand logistics to kick-starting your own start-up and investing in your favorite company, we've covered the four cornerstones of Financial Literacy in exciting, engaging, and easy-to-implement ways. From Personal Finance and Economics to Entrepreneurship and Investing, FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is the groundbreaking Financial Literacy Program that empowers students BEFORE High School—to achieve their best success AFTER High School.

Ariel Education Initiative is founded upon the belief that Financial Literacy is a critical 21st-century skill and is vital to our kids, our society, and our future. That’s why AEI developed FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ and that is also why this program is 100% /free.

The goal of FUTURES is to provide a robust financial education program for kids—in school and beyond. Whether it be learning to invest in securities, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, the fundamentals of becoming an entrepreneur or conducting a cost/benefit analysis or credit, this program offers learners the chance to shape their own point of view that will empower them to make wise money choices—long into their futures.

Beyond the Blog

These blog posts can only provide a glimpse of how FUTURES simplifies and deconstructs complicated, intricate Financial Literacy concepts to make them relevant and easier to understand for students. With the full FUTURES program at your fingertips, you can you’re your kids better understand the complicated world of finance AND develop their own personal stake in it. Created by teachers for teachers, this proven educational program is FREE and readily available to districts, schools, teachers, coaches, counselors, and families, too! 

FUTURES encourages kids to develop and form this own point of view of finance and investing, while honing their critical thinking skills as they progress through the depth and breadth of the four strands and 29 stand-alone sections of the program.  

Real-time, real-world connections drive kids’ interest and create effective links between academic content and the business world. This unique multi-disciplinary approach elevates learning, allowing educators, school districts, and families and community centers to help prepare tomorrow’s leaders—today—so they can compete in and become strong leaders of our ever-changing global marketplace—in their futures.

Four Cornerstones of Financial Literacy

The FUTURES™ program guides students from kindergarten through eighth grade, starting with a basic and progressing up to an advanced understanding of four main finance-related instructional content strands: Personal Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship, and Investing.

Each section begins with a detailed ready-to-use planning guide and is brimming with handouts and resources—including engaging exercises, fun projectiles, easy-to-understand worksheets, and much more. Each section is divided into five color-coded sections scaling in difficulty, so that teachers, educators, and families can use their knowledge of the strengths and challenges their learners may face to adapt and modify each section to meet their specific learning styles, readiness, and needs. The stand-alone nature of each topic makes it easy to weave these important skills into any ongoing curriculum.

Personal Finance

Personal Finance is just that, it’s personal—and as a result, it’s valuable for everyone—kids, teachers, leaders, and families alike. With the help of the FUTURES™ program, kids can begin to more clearly define and understand a budget, the various categories within a budget, learn to create a budget, make budget adjustments, and apply this knowledge in memorable real-world settings. As kids create their own budgets after tracking expenses over time, learning the differences between a job and a career, a need and a want, and many other financial literacy nuances, budgeting becomes familiar and more infused into their learning strategies.

Like all four strands of FUTURES™, the Personal Finance strand is designed to help you “meet your kids where they are.” Each of the program’s 29 sections is organized around a Focus Question. For example, the Budget and Goal Setting section asks kids to consider the following: “When, how, and why is it beneficial to manage your money?” It's this kind of personalization that makes the learning process more relevant. It engages and involves the kids, inspiring them to really think about what they might do in a range of financial situations. These are just some of the strategies that help to makes FUTURES such a successful Financial Literacy program.

Economics

In the Economics strand of FUTURES™, a variety of section resources introduce kids to Economics concepts by incorporating fun activities and familiar real-world scenarios. Through leveled resources, kids learn the roles of consumers and producers, look at how money is used as a medium of exchange, and examine the trading process from various angles as well as gain an understanding of how goods and services are produced, consumed and exchanged. Kids even examine a city council budget, consider the fairness of a trade, and look at how advancements in musical technology, a highly popular topic, have impacted consumers.

It's through this guided, easy-to-access lesson plan approach that you can begin to coach your kids to expand their ideas about Personal Finance. This program helps to explain the larger role of Economics to everyone. They’ll build upon the base understanding from the Personal Finance strand, enlarging the scope of their financial literacy world by carefully explaining how businesses work within their own world and in the greater world view. Clarity about concepts like the flow of money and target markets are vital. These are defined in easy-to-understand language and through engaging worksheets, helping kids can begin to formulate a better understanding of just how much the economy impacts both their own lives and the world around them. 

Entrepreneurship

The program’s detailed Entrepreneurship strand covers more than just Entrepreneurship; it covers a wealth of powerful future-focused leadership concepts for kids. From business startup and financing, flow of money, public and private corporations, target markets and the always important social responsibility, kids are able to experience and visualize themselves as entrepreneurial leaders. After all, tomorrow isn’t that far away!

With the help of FUTURES helpful worksheets and games, kids can unlock a richer grasp of what it takes to start and run a business—and many kids discover their own entrepreneurial passions, able to shape these glimmers of passions into future ideas. Just checkout the FUTURES success stories in the Program Overview!

Kids will also explore the various parts of building and running a successful business, learn how a franchise works, discover the difference between investing in a startup business versus a franchise, and investing in a business and running that same business every single day (and night!). They will also learn how to make financing decisions and become worthy candidates for credit.

In this strand, kids consider various factors for starting a business and the importance of goal setting at the beginning stages of the business—and every single day thereafter.

The Entrepreneurship strand helps kids explore how they might want to run their own businesses one day—soon. The foundation from the previous two strands allows them to start to brainstorm how their own personal finances impact the bigger economy around them.

Many of these kids just might start their very own businesses—with this strong jumpstart from FUTURES—and you!

Investing—in Everyone’s Bigger Future

From stocks and bonds to low- and high-risk investments to mutual funds, the nuances of investing can be intricate; this is why the Investment strand is so important. In these stand-alone sections and lessons, kids define investing and learn why investing is a beneficial practice. Beginning to understand the process of choosing a stock includes reading financial information, researching simple information, and comparing the stock to its peers. With the help of FUTURES easy-to-do worksheets and hands-on learning strategies, kids and adults can wrap their heads around even complicated investing details.

Investing in one's future is a key part of life and starts long before adulthood and entering the workforce. This is why it's so important to help kids understand that Financial Literacy is a powerful tool, designed to help them begin to plan and invest in the bigger future they want for themselves.

Adaptable, Versatile, and FREE

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is a highly adaptable and agile financial literacy program that works well in schools, classrooms, clubs, community centers and even around the dinner table. Want your kids to know more and become well-versed on economic topics in fun and easy-to-infuse ways? Just download any/all sections that appeal and pick and choose activities that connect to everyday topics in your class, group, or household. You don’t need to be a seasoned teacher to effectively incorporate these ideas in conversations, fun family exchanges, and to generally raise awareness about the power of economics. Teaching your kids how to be financially literate is what FUTURES is all about. 

 It’s Never a Wrap

Thanks for checking out all 30 Financial Literacy posts in honor of Financial Literacy Month! For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, this amazing (and FREE!) financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or to download sections from the program, please click below.

Stay tuned for regular updates and Quick Refresher blog posts several times over the summer. While we won’t be posting every day, we’ll stay connected. The need for Financial Literacy never stops.

These 30 evergreen blog posts will remain up—and will remain relevant long after this Financial Literacy Month of April is over. Should you find yourself looking to connect financial literacy concepts to everything from curriculum themes to family life lessons, you’ll continue to be able to download and use this program with our compliments—any time, any place—to help your kids grow and flourish into Financially Literate Kids who become part of a Financially Literate Society.

All Together Now!

Now it’s time to bring it all together! It’s time to wrap up this month of activities to raise awareness that April is Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™.  This blog post is a true keeper. In this activity, we’ll weave together a clever combination of several of the posts we've shared during this month. By combining these activities to create a right-sized culminating project, we not only reinforce the Financial Literacy concepts we’ve covered, we’re also putting them together for practical use in a cohesive and memorable way for kids. “Wait? THIS is Financial Literacy? How is that possible? This stuff is fun!”

2 + 9 + 19 = FUN!

Kids will apply the budget-making skills introduced in post 2 with their knowledge of supply and demand that was covered in post 9, to test their entrepreneurial knowledge from designing a winning cereal box in post 19 to put together a fun and creative presentation to attract investors to invest in their business!  

If building a favorite cereal company seems too complex for younger kids, it’s easy to adapt this idea to ask “family investors” to invest in a lemonade stand instead. In both cases, begin by guiding kids to list what raw materials and funding they think they would need for their cereal company or lemonade stand. Once they sort through this past, it’s time to create and then make their pitch. 

A Quick Recap

First, have kids take a look back at blog post 2 and revisit how to put together a realistic budget. Kids can model their company budget on this post, determining how much money and what supplies they’ll need to launch their cereal business or lemonade stand. They can start with a checklist of needed supplies and expenses—everything from factory space to cereal boxes or lemons to paper cups—and research ballpark costs for each item to come up with a realistic total. Remind them that time is money, too. Ask them to consider how much work and labor it will take to deliver their company’s results.

Kids will take a cue from blog post 9 to determine pricing for their cereal or lemonade. Focus especially on the “Let’s Make a Deal” section. Then glance back at the weekend reading recommendations in post 20 and recall Pet and Cat’s lemonade stand pricing dilemma to inform their own pricing strategies.

Finally, dive back into blog post 19 for a recap of the basics of product design and marketing and some ideas to kickstart their own cereal brainstorming session. And then reread post 22 for a reminder of social responsibility and how business owners can balance the three Ps of people, planet and profit. Younger kids can focus on creating a sign and pricing strategy that is sure to sweeten their appeal.

Ready, Set, (Rehearse, Revise—and then) Present!

Now they need to put it all together in a compelling and convincing presentation. Suggest that kids make signs, share their budget worksheet, and even make a video to do their presentation. If relatives live elsewhere, kids can make their pitches using a mobile device.

Many older students are quite adept at using presentation software like PowerPoint, Keynote, Prezi and more. Pitches should answer the 5Ws and H: who, what, where, when, why and how. They should discuss competitor cereal products or similar lemonade stands they’ve encountered and explain why their product or approach is special, unique, will appeal to the market, and stand out. By asking kids, “What makes your cereal or lemonade stand better AND different?” you can encourage them to objectively consider and weigh the pros and cons of their idea.

Encourage kids to “teach you a thing or two” as they practice both their Financial Literacy skills and presentation skills. Make it polished and professional. One great way to help kids “see” how their presentation looks is to video a dry run. By hiding behind your phone, kids are bound to be more relaxed. They are also more likely to see where their pitch might need to be adjusted. Remind your kids that it is important to rehearse and revise their presentation before the big pitch. Then ready… set… PITCH!

Weekend Reading Becomes Great Any-Day Reads!

Because this feature was such a big hit over this past month, we're adapting it as we wrap up these 30 Financial Literacy posts to showcase Financial Literacy  Month. For our final reading recommendations, keep these delightful trade titles in mind as you spend time with your kids during transitions, commuting time, and other small pockets of reading opportunity.

Here are 4 different story books and chapter books about Financial Literacy. Check out the library or on Amazon for these titles and more—Financial Literacy stories help bring concepts home for kids in relatable ways.

What’s NEXT?

We're also adapting our Weekend “What If…?” feature to become "What NEXT?" Now that your future cereal or lemonade mogul has made a strong pitch, what steps would they need to take next if they were fortunate enough to secure funding? The cereal entrepreneurs can research how they would actually make their cereal—looking up how and where factories produce cereal, what volume of production they would need to be profitable, and examine test cases of actual cereal companies in the news. Lemonade stand operators can think about possible locations or events for their lemonade stand and start taking steps to put these actions into practice.

Visit Us One More Day in April

Check back tomorrow for the final day of Financial Literacy Month as we recap everything we covered this April and sum up what we’ve shared during this time about the importance of including Financial Literacy activities at home, at school, and on the go. Financial Literacy is part of everything we do, adds value, and helps us all to connect the dots between priorities, goals, and results.

FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ is an ideal FREE resource for students in kindergarten through eighth grade. Please click below to download any of the 29 sections of the program.

Your Turn: How to Help Yourself and Your Favorite Companies

How Would You Run Your Favorite Company?

 Wow! Time really has flown by this last Financial Literacy Month, hasn't it? It's already time for our last Weekend WHAT IF blog post! For our last big “WHAT IF” question, we're asking the kids to put themselves in the shoes of the investor by imagining they're investing their own money in the stock market to help their favorite companies grow bigger and bigger.

Weekend-What-Ifs are one of the best ways to engage kids to think about what they would do in a given investing, entrepreneurial, and financial literacy situation. This is crucial in getting the students to actually care about investing and helps them begin to grapple with their own personal philosophies in investing. In addition, by putting your kids in the visualization driver’s seat on a weekend, you are helping them to “see themselves” in their bigger future——now.

Opening your kids’ eyes to the fact that finance is a very real concept both now and in their will help kids to understand that the choices they make today and the things they are learning today will both help to shape their lives as they grow up. Helping kids figure out how to best navigate the vast world around them helps kids better relate the importance of financial literacy today and for many tomorrows. There’s no time like the present to begin or review these powerful life skills. This blog post with certainly help with that.

How to Begin

Use this graphic to show the big picture of investing. Keep it close by during the activity to refer back to it as needed.

Begin by asking kids what companies they like. Ask them why and what they think it would be like to invest in these companies. Help by choosing your favorite company too and going through this activity together. Remind kids that as a lead investor in one of your favorite companies, you’re actually a part-owner! Remember, a stock represents ownership in a company; if you buy a stock from a company, you are now part owner of this company.

Five to One Faves

Ask the kids to brainstorm what some of their favorite companies are; suggest they make a list of five faves and narrow down to one for this exercise. If they're having trouble thinking of some, help them think of some of their favorite products and toys and help them think about who is making them.

• Coffee cup and tennis shoes

• Do you love going to Starbucks and getting to choose your own Frappuccino? Maybe it's time to follow that sweet tooth and invest in the company that makes some of your favorite treats.

• Are you excited for the newest animated movie due to hit the streets soon? Maybe you should invest in your entertainment future and buy some stock in a major entertainment company.

• to follow that sweet tooth and invest in the company that makes some of your favorite treats.

• What about the new and hottest, most popular shoe company—ever? Maybe you should put your money where your favorite shoes take you.

Know Your Company

By encouraging kids to invest in companies they already support and like, they’ll learn a very valuable investing lesson: investors need to understand the company, its end users, the customer base, the market segments, and the company’s philosophies and priorities in order to be a savvy investor. What better way to learn than by experiencing the company first-hand (or first-foot) as a consumer?

It's Your Decision

It's important to stress that each kid can make a personal choice about their company—there’s no right or wrong choice for this exercise. Give kids ample time to think about their choices, favorites, and ultimate decision. Weave in a few future-based ideas and “what if” ideas by asking what kind of future they “see” for themselves. Ask them how they could potentially change their own future by investing in companies they believe in or in which they have a personal stake. In so doing, you're helping them discover and delve more deeply into their very own “Early Stage” Investment Philosophies.

Having an Investment Philosophy means that as an investor, you have a set of guiding principles that inform and shape your investment decision-making process. Summarize by underscoring that this same kind of decision-making that the kids just went through to arrive at the decision of what companies they wanted to invest in is the same kind of thinking any investor does. It's important to go through the different types of philosophies now and stress that there can be more than one that can influence why you might choose to invest in a company by buying stock.

• Some classic investing philosophies include:

• Value Philosophy

• Fundamental Philosophy

• Growth Philosophy

• Socially Responsible Philosophy

• Technical Philosophy

• Contrarian Philosophy 

Many Factors, Many Choices

An overall decision on why you might choose to invest in a company goes beyond your investing philosophies to encompass a multitude of factors. Ask kids to identify the most important factors that influenced their investment choices.

• Are they concerned about Global Warming or the future of the world? Then they might be a Socially Responsible investor.

• Did they have a favorite candy company that they want to see make bigger and better candies? They might be an investor with a keen eye for Growth.

• Did anyone invest in something that isn't doing well now? They might be a Contrarian investor.

It's great to clarify that there are many philosophies beyond the ones we've reviewed here.

The most important part of any investing philosophy is the person behind the decision:  YOU. It's all about what each investor wants to achieve and accomplish through their investment strategy.

What Kind of Future are You investing in?

Exercises like this that allow kids to imagine what they might like to do in the future is a key developmental strategy. It provides the foundation for focused goal-setting. FUTURES gives kids a solid framework within which to understand the complex world of investing. By providing many different exercises and opportunities for your kids to put themselves in that “future” world now helps jumpstart kids to develop their own investment philosophies, a key stepping stone to full financial literacy.

With the help of the Investing Strand and FUTURES, your kids will not only be able to understand the complicated world of stocks, they'll also begin to understand how they can start investing in their own future.

Visit Us Every Day in April

Check back tomorrow for our next financial literacy post. For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, this amazing (and FREE!) financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or to download sections from the program, please click below.

Weekend Reading—The Bridge of the Golden Wood

“‘What are you looking at?’ asked the boy. ‘Trouble and treasure,’ she said.’”

And so begins our final weekend reading recommendation for Financial Literacy Month with FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™. The Bridge of the Golden Wood: A Parable on How to Earn a Living by Karl Beckstrand, is an amazing story that uses the classic structure of a parable to tell a story about finding and making your own opportunities, something every financially-literate child and adult needs to remember! When we make our own opportunities, we can help ourselves to shape our biggest possible FUTURES!

In this story, a young boy encounters an old woman sitting by a stream who explains that a pile-up of branches in the water is blocking the fish from swimming past, and they’re getting hungry—that’s the “trouble” at the heart of the book. The boy uses his ingenuity to solve the problem of the fish and, along the way, develops a useful enterprise of his own.

Book 3 in the Careers for Kids Series, this illustrated folk tale teaches kids how to spot and take advantage of opportunities as they arise and transform their own skills and talents into lucrative activities.

Use the book as an inspiring springboard to help kids find their own “treasure”—of money-making opportunities. The award-winning author, Karl Beckstrand, is a former Silicon Valley recruiter, and the book includes ideas for jobs, money-making activities and online resources for managing money and finding customers. You can buy it here.

Finding Their Own Treasure

 How can kids find the hidden treasure in their own lives?

After reading the book, engage kids in a discussion about finding opportunities all around them:

• What have you noticed in your home, school, or community that needs work?

• How can you help?

• What special talents or skills do you have that would pair with a problem around you?

• How can you take that idea and turn it into treasure?

 Visit Us Every Day in April 

Tomorrow check back for another day of Financial Literacy Month for our final Weekend “What If…?”: What if you could invest in your favorite companies? Kids will learn how big businesses are run while taking part in some real-world “investing” of their own.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

Investing in One's Own Future: Financial Literacy and FUTURES

Investing isn't just for adults. Investing in one's future is a key part of life and starts long before someone becomes an adult or enters the workforce. This is why it's so important to help kids understand the complicated ways finance works in the world, and how with a little bit of thought and application starting now, they can begin to plan and invest in the bigger future they want for themselves.

Simplifying Complicated Investing Concepts
As we've seen over the last couple of blog posts, the fundamentals of investing come with a lot of complicated concepts. From stocks and bonds to low- and high-risk investments to mutual funds, it can be a little challenging for kids to grasp the concepts and to wrap their heads around the nuances of investing. What matters most is to help kids understand that investing can be such a beneficial process for their future. That's why we’re pulling the curtain back even more to showcase the power-packed Investing strand of the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program.

In these lessons, students learn to define not only what investing is, but how to understand the myriad complex investment opportunities that are available today. This is crucial engagement that helps kids to begin to develop their own point of view and awareness of the many different life factors that can so easily influence the value of various investment options such as stocks. Life factors also influence us, as investors, making it a good time or not-so-good time to take a risk or make a move. By teaching kids about investing, we’re underscoring vital life choices that kids will make as they move forward in school, their careers, and life itself. It’s always about choices.

This rich, scenario-packed program Investing strand is ideal for kids from grades K through 8—and beyond. These sections also make for a quick and easy review for grad students, MBAs, entrepreneurs, and anyone who’s curious about what it takes to successfully invest in one's own future. Financial education knowledge is key to planning a bigger future, increasing your financial literacy, and working to become a wise and seasoned investor. The detailed Investing strand covers a wealth of topics in this stand-alone section of the program:

• Fundamentals of Investing

• Stocks

• Mutual Funds

• Bonds

• Purchasing Investments

• Portfolio Managements

Through easy to understand, engaging lessons involving real-world scenarios, helpful worksheets, fun activities, and even some games and everyone who explores this strand will discover:

• how to define investing and learn why investing is a beneficial practice.

• how to determine what it costs to own a stock and how one might go about choosing a stock.

• More about mutual funds, it's advantages and disadvantages, and how to evaluate mutual funds as an investment option.

• the characteristics of a bond and what key information is need to evaluate a bond as an investment choice.

• how to plan to make their investments grow by learning to manage risk.

• the role of the stock market, the roles of financial advisors, how to make a self-directed investment purchase, and how to buy certain stocks directly from the company.

As with the other strands in this powerful financial literacy program, each section is organized around an engaging Focus Question and divided into five parts, providing a spiraled, progressive presentation of the topic. Five levels of instruction move from a basic to advanced understanding of topics concerning entrepreneurship, helping teachers “meet their students where they are.” Adult learners will also be able to learn from the ground up with this progressive instructional model.

Just check out a few of the sections to get a first-hand look at the wealth of information. The supplemental activities help all of us to apply our skills and talents from other experiences. Students can make cross-curricular connections with other subject areas, too—including math, art, writing, science, and social studies. 

No Such Thing As A Free Program?

Guess, again. During this Financial Literacy Month of April, we've shared a substantial preview of the informative worksheets and engaging exercises that make up the Investing strand from the FUTURES program. That said, nothing can compare to actually going through the whole program with your kids. That’s why this program is FREE. 

Investing is a substantial part of financial literacy and with the Investing Strand, kids have access to over 300 pages of easy-to-digest content and exercises to help expand their world view on stocks, mutual funds, risk and most importantly, themselves. From hard-to-understand key concepts and definition breakdowns to fun and memorable games that help bring out the FUNdamentals of investing, kids will begin to understand the trickier concepts involved with investing and will begin to develop their own personal investing philosophy. By allowing kids the time to think and respond to the worksheets, FUTURES helps promote an inspire kids to think for themselves and starts them off on the path to better understand the world around them.

Investing in YOUR Future

Not only does the Investing strand offer many stable stepping stones to help kids along the path of financial literacy and sound investing, it also provides kids with the necessary materials and examples to begin to engage in investing and to see the value of investing in their own future.

FUTURES Investing Strand helps kids understand that investing requires resources including time, money, and talent. FUTURES helps kids begin to self-actualize their own personal investment philosophy and provides them with a framework to understand complicated investing concepts.

Visit Us Every Day in April 

Check back tomorrow for our next financial literacy post. For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™, this amazing (and FREE!) financial literacy program for students in kindergarten through eighth grade, or to download sections from the program, please click below.

Stock Up on Stocks!

Now that kids are familiar with the basics of personal finance, economics, and entrepreneurship, it’s time to invest! Today we’re taking a page from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program’s investment strand and teaching kids about stocks and investments. These topics might sound out of reach for younger—or even older—students, but after learning some key terms and the main decisions involved in investing, they’ll be thinking like future stock brokers in no time.

What’s It Called?

First, they’ll need to learn a few key terms:  

What is a stock?
A stock represents ownership in a company. A person who owns a share—called a shareholder—is allowed to vote on decisions made by the company.

What is a share?
Think about a pizza. The pizza represents a company. Each piece is a share of the company. Each piece of the pizza is an equal share.

What is a dividend?
A dividend is a sum of money paid periodically by a company to its shareholders out of its profits. A dividend is paid out periodically.

To Sell or Not to Sell?

 To sell or not to sell: this is the big question when it comes to investing. When a stock value goes up after the shareholders have purchased it, shareholders can choose to sell their stock and receive the money they earned. However, when stock is sold, shareholders are no longer part owners of the company and can’t earn any future dividends.

To Risk or Not to Risk?

Stocks are considered to be a risky investment. Unlike a bank that guarantees a particular rate of interest and can ensure that you won’t lose the money you deposit, while stocks can increase in vale after shareholders purchase shares, they can just as easily dramatically drop in value, too. This is why the stock market is considered to be more volatile and investment strategy. Even if an investor researches a company and feels confident about a decision to invest and buy shares in that business, the company might still do poorly and the investor can lose money.

This easy-to-follow downloadable flowchart will guide kids in making decisions about their stocks when the price of a share is up or down. Download it here.

Buy, Sell or Hold?

 Now kids will have the chance to make their own investment decisions! If you’re working with younger kids, help them to gather financial news stories about a publicly traded company with available stock. Older kids can research news stories on their own. Tech-minded kids might decide to research Apple, while kids into sports or fashion might dive deep into news about Nike. Encourage kids to think about products thy use every day. Clothing companies, foods they enjoy, and social media companies also are good directions for kids to explore.

Choose Two!

Once you and your kids settle on two top companies, share that the kids have a fixed amount of money to invest. (Consider an amount that is easy for kids to compute; a fixed dollar amount of $500 might let your kids purchase more stocks in one company than the other.)

Once your kids have made their “purchase,” have them consider the latest news about their company or suggest two or three possible scenarios, based on the current status of the company. If the company they’ve chosen happens not to be in the news at the moment, ask these “What IF” questions to propose some hypothetical scenarios that could prompt their buy, sell, and hold decision:

• What if the company loses a big deal?

• What if the company is coming out with a new product?

• What if the company just gave a lot of money to a worthy cause?

• What do these events tell you about the company?

• Will you continue to invest, sell your shares, or buy even more shares in the company?

It’s Decision Time

1. As they sort through available information and consider your questions, they should analyze the factors that are likely to affect the prices of the stocks and their decision to buy, sell, or hold.

2. Prompt them to review the flow chart above.

3. Finally, it’s decision time! Did your kids decide to buy, sell or hold their stocks in Company X?

4. Kids should be able to explain clearly why they made the decision they did, and back it up with information from the news and your scenarios.

Visit Us Every Day in April

 Tomorrow check back for another day of Financial Literacy Month as we explore the concept of mutual funds. Kids will learn what a fund manager does by creating their own blend of real—and tasty—trail mix.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.

The Three Ps: Talking Social Responsibility

Who’s Responsible?

What responsibilities do people have toward one another—and toward the planet? Does this change when people are part of a corporation?

 We’re starting this next week of Financial Literacy Month with a discussion of social responsibility.

• What does it mean to be socially responsible, and why is this important?

• How can a for-profit company demonstrate social responsibility?

These are some of the types of questions kids will explore through a fun and focused activity from the FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ program, designed to help kids in grades K through 8 today to understand the importance of financial literacy to contribute as engaged and informed citizens in the future. Tomorrow’s leaders can even help to shape our society today. This game exposes kids to the big concepts that relate to social responsibility.

But Corporations Aren’t People, Are They?

First, ask kids to take a stab at defining social responsibility. Explain that it means that, as members of a society, people are responsible for the welfare of all citizens and we are also responsible for the health of the planet. When we apply this concept to business, it means much the same thing: corporations can and should find a balance between economic growth, or profit seeking, and responsibility to society and the environment.

This idea might sound very serious or hard to understand for younger students, but, when you connect it to what we expect the students in our classrooms and members of our families to do, there are many familiar undertones that helps to make this concept more relatable, even to younger learners. Social responsibility for corporations is about acting responsibly and making business decisions that don’t hurt people, animals, or the environment while still bringing in profits. It’s about striking a smart balance. Social responsibility for corporations doesn’t stop once the profits come in—that’s when the socially responsible work needs to keep going. Socially responsible companies and their leaders and entrepreneurs understand that it is through these profits that even more benefits can be realized. Profits can actually help corporations contribute more with, for, and to society by giving back, making differences, and adding value.

The 3 Ps

Socially responsible corporations focus on three Ps—people, planet, and profits. When a company takes care if its employees, community, and customers, it is focusing on people. A company takes care of the planet by being sensitive to how it manages its waste, air pollution, and safety practices. When a company conducts business in ways that care of people and the planet and also makes a business profit, the company is on its way to being a socially responsible company. What that company re-invests some of its business profit to help make the world a better place, the company is contributing as a socially responsible company in all 3 ways—people, planet, and profits.

Once kids understand a little more about corporate responsibility, they’ll have the chance to put these ideas into action through a creative business scenario. It’s time to create a corporate responsibility strategy focused on the three Ps: people, planet and profit.

If the Shoe Fits…

Imagine you’re the CEO of a new clothing and shoe company. Your task is to create a proposal for your employees and board members to vote on that demonstrates the three Ps—people, planet and profits. The proposal should address these points:

With your family or classroom, discuss the pros and cons of each proposal and then have everyone vote on the best proposal.

• What makes the winning proposal stand out?

• How does it successfully balance each of the three aspects of corporate responsibility?

• Can you envision an even better proposal with the best single idea from each “P” category (people, planet or profit)?

BONUS!

As a bonus activity, have students research socially minded businesses online and then determine if any of the companies’ approaches overlap with the proposals they created. What other ideas did the businesses implement?

Visit Us Every Day in April

Tomorrow we’ll continue our series of posts for Financial Literacy Month with information about investing. Kids will become familiar with the stock market and learn key terms while taking part in some hypothetical stock purchases.

For more information about FUTURES: Financially Literate Kids for a Financially Literate Society™ for students in kindergarten through eighth grade or to download any of the 29 sections of the program, please click below.